I had the misfortune of being in the car the other day listening to an hysterical Jon Faine ‘interview’ of Michael Smith and Mark Baker about the Gillard-AWU Slush Fund affair. What a disgrace! There is absolutely no doubt that Faine is violating the ABC’s Editorial Policies - his attitudes are just sickening. He was rude and interrupting and that was the best that can be said about his performance.
Because Faine was once upon a time a very junior lawyer, he has become the most insufferable know-it-all when it comes to what lawyers do and standards of professional and ethical conduct. Take it from me, he knows nothing. And the notion that a lawyer would lie or do something illegal just because a client requests it … excuse me.
It tells us everything about Faine’s background as a lawyer and NOTHING about mainstream legal practice.
I thought The Australian, via David Crowe and Joe Kelly, cut to the chase this morning with the key unaswered questions:
- Why did Gillard not set up a file when establishing the slush fund, aka AWU Workplace Reform Association? (Lack of attention to paperwork does not cut it; setting up files and clearing it with the other partners are critical to the operation of law firms.)
- Was the AWU, a client of the firm, informed of the establishment of the fund? If not, why not?
- Why did Gillard not inform the AWU of the misuse of the slush fund once she suspected this was occurring?
- Did Gillard misrepresent the true purpose of the AWU Workplace Reform Association to the WA Corporate Affairs Commission? (Providing false information to government officials is potentially an offence.)
- Why did Gillard not report matters to the police when she became aware of the fraud involved in the operation of the fund?
I think that Gillard’s use of the word wrongdoing is deliberate.
But surely she accepts that it was WRONG to be involved in the setting up of a slush fund, including using AWU in its name? Surely she also accepts that it was WRONG to fail to open a file and to keep her fellow partners in the dark on this matter? After all, the firm was to lose the AWU as a client. If she did misrespresent the true purpose of the slush fund, which on her account was to help with the re-election of certain union officials, including her boyfriend, to the government authority, surely this was also WRONG.
How the import of these actions is now interpreted is a matter of personal opinion, but can anyone really deny that she was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Faine, Cassidy et al will all jump on the bandwagon when Julie Bishop cooks her in Parliament this week.
Watch the sooks say they knew all along!!!!!!!!!
Mike of Marion
24 Nov 12 at 3:52 pm
People who have worked with lawyers have to explain the law to him. Journalists have to explain the function of journalism to him.
‘I just don’t get it.’ Truer words…
Their ABC has to be privatised.
tylos
24 Nov 12 at 3:57 pm
I would also like to know why allegedly Mr Wilson put $5,000 into Ms Gillard’s bank account in “mid 1995″ and whether it has any relationship to the $5,000 cash and $10,000 bank cheque allegedly paid to Mr Spyridis in late April or May 1995. Recall that Ms Gillard said “I paid for the renovations on my home”. Did she pay it with her own (after tax) money?
Bruce
24 Nov 12 at 4:01 pm
The ABC is a national disgrace. We must stop this complee waste of taxpayers money.
If Tony Abbott reckons we can’t afford a higher humanitarian immigration intake, I have a simple solution. Sell the ABC and SBS and use the money saved to look after more refugees. Win Win all round.
johno
24 Nov 12 at 4:10 pm
Nothing new about Faine. I went to school with the insufferable asshat at Melbourne High. He was a dick then and continues to be one now.
I have a story to tell about him. He was a leftwing idiot even then, which suggests it must have, for him, derived through his genetic makeup. It was the time when the Concorde was introduced. He belonged to a beta group of boys that wanted to talk and protest about the plane’s introduction. We in class when the topic arose. He booed and laughed at me when I suggested it was a magnificent looking piece of machinery. I distinctly recall that I wanted to get out of my desk and flatten the deadshit.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 4:20 pm
Unlike Smith and Milne, I bet Jon Faine will not be losing his job for his disgusting behaviour towards his guests. Nice one ABC your BIAS is showing.
Muphin
24 Nov 12 at 4:21 pm
Whether she gets charged or not, not only is she wrong but she is gone. I would have thought that the ALP will do her over before,the electorate. She can’t stop the stench and if people like Faine continue their wilful blindness they will ultimately be seen for the fools that they are.
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 4:22 pm
You critics of our “Beloved Maximum Leader” will be in real trouble when “we”win the election next year! Comrade Combet is ti be made Chief of the All New Klimate Guardians Bureau ,or KGB for short (wouldnt he LOVE that ?) His task ,to Remove All Negative Anti Socialist Revanchists.ive already applied to join, the chances for ( bribes) ehr advancement I mean,application forms are available from Comrade Grigory at His Klimate Change Commisariat.
Jimmtmacfernan
24 Nov 12 at 4:22 pm
I posted this on the current Open Thread, but it is better placed here:
Their ABC
JC: rather than hitting him, a more satisfying revenge will come when the ABC is cleaned out and Faine lines up at CentreLink
areff
24 Nov 12 at 4:24 pm
Hi Areff
I wish it was the case but I think they all pay themselves really well and won’t need the dole.
Life is an injustice at times.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 4:27 pm
Takes one to know one….
1735099
24 Nov 12 at 4:28 pm
Smug Jonathon Holmes will be all over this Jon Faine idiot. Any minute now. Don’t hold your breath. It’s nearly time for the Mediawatch holiday break anyway. Phew, can’t come quick enough for Holmes.
Keith
24 Nov 12 at 4:39 pm
[...] Judith Sloan is ‘pissed off’ “Gillard: wrong, wrong, wrong”. [...]
Wrong … | pindanpost
24 Nov 12 at 4:41 pm
You do realise what you just did then ?
Probably not. never mind.
Keith
24 Nov 12 at 4:41 pm
jellybeansinthejungle.blogspot.com.au just lost the plot, the insufferable know-it-all …
tom harley
24 Nov 12 at 4:47 pm
A Facebook page asks whether Julia has CRAFT’s disease.
Can’t Remember A F**king Thing
GrantB
24 Nov 12 at 4:50 pm
Providing false information to officials … Brian Burke found out the hard way.
tom harley
24 Nov 12 at 4:51 pm
I’m not so sure. The Red Dalek must have some serious dirt on quite a few faceless men and other movers and shakers of the Labor movement; how else could she win pre-selection in such a safe seat as Lalor?
Cold-Hands
24 Nov 12 at 4:53 pm
It’s a mutual protection society, and it’s getting hard to tell who is protecting who any more. Pretty soon, someone’s going to crack and turn on the party in return for immunity. Blewitt’s statement to the police will have quite a few of them “considering their future” as they say.
Keith
24 Nov 12 at 5:01 pm
I wonder if question time gets cancelled this week ? Will Gillard actually put in an appearance ?
Keith
24 Nov 12 at 5:03 pm
Oh FFS numbers, how old are you ……6?
Don’t spend your whole life as an ex AJ.
Carpe Jugulum
24 Nov 12 at 5:09 pm
He’s one of those ones who’s got nothing else.
John Mc
24 Nov 12 at 5:11 pm
Look Judith, thanks for taking one for the team and all, but please ration your exposure to that spavined cretin Faine.
Every time anyone listens to Faine, their IQ drops.
So if you treat him as being alike to your intellect as mustard gas is to your skin, you should be OK.
The impact on one’s intellect of listening to such an idiot routinely is akin to snorting VX.
Mk50 of Brisbane
24 Nov 12 at 5:13 pm
She should have saved up that misogyny speech for next week.
Viva
24 Nov 12 at 5:14 pm
A missed opportunity JC; but you’re not dead and neither is Faine so another opportunity may occur.
Numbers says:
Isn’t that fucking ironic.
The wider picture with Gillard is that the maliase she represents seeps through the whole social structure; for instance another ABC prick now compares AGW sceptics to pedophiles.
If Gillard is above the law then all bets are off.
Right now what is clear is that she fraudulently prepared the application for association: From Gillard’s press conference:
http://resources.news.com.au/files/2012/08/23/1226456/939999-aus-news-file-pm-transcript-120823.pdf
So that’s it; she admits she knew the association was a slush fund when she declared on the application that it was for workplace safety of AWU members; it wasn’t; it was for funding the reelection of bastards like Wilson [Gillard's defence here is that when the purpose is not called a slush fund, but a reelection fund, that is alright even thought the 2 things are the same]; but even that wasn’t the truth; it was really a fund to extort business and divert AWU funds into Wilson’s pockets.
Styant-Brown’s evidence is unequivovcal that Gillard knew the funds were going to be used for Wilson’s private use.
If Gillard was just a solicitor she would already be fucked.
Does the PM stand above the law; if she does there is no law; as simple as that.
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 5:14 pm
A missed opportunity JC; but you’re not dead and neither is Faine so another opportunity may occur.
Numbers says:
Isn’t that fucking ironic.
The wider picture with Gillard is that the maliase she represents seeps through the whole social structure; for instance another ABC prick now compares AGW sceptics to pedophiles.
If Gillard is above the law then all bets are off.
Right now what is clear is that she fraudulently prepared the application for association: From Gillard’s press conference:
So that’s it; she admits she knew the association was a slush fund when she declared on the application that it was for workplace safety of AWU members; it wasn’t; it was for funding the reelection of bastards like Wilson [Gillard's defence here is that when the purpose is not called a slush fund, but a reelection fund, that is alright even thought the 2 things are the same]; but even that wasn’t the truth; it was really a fund to extort business and divert AWU funds into Wilson’s pockets.
Styant-Brown’s evidence is unequivovcal that Gillard knew the funds were going to be used for Wilson’s private use.
If Gillard was just a solicitor she would already be fucked.
Does the PM stand above the law; if she does there is no law; as simple as that.
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 5:15 pm
Good call on the weasel words Judith. Her earlier references to inquiries and investigations weren’t prefaced with police, so you know, she could could claim she meant S&G inquiries. I note also her most recent defence of knowledge of the mortgage consists of non-recollection of a specific document (designed to give an impression obviously different to reality).
McTernan 101
Rousie
24 Nov 12 at 5:16 pm
Try again; 3rd version.
A missed opportunity JC; but you’re not dead and neither is Faine so another opportunity may occur.
Numbers says:
Isn’t that fucking ironic.
The wider picture with Gillard is that the maliase she represents seeps through the whole social structure.
If Gillard is above the law then all bets are off.
Right now what is clear is that she fraudulently prepared the application for association: From Gillard’s press conference:
So that’s it; she admits she knew the association was a slush fund when she declared on the application that it was for workplace safety of AWU members; it wasn’t; it was for funding the reelection of bastards like Wilson [Gillard's defence here is that when the purpose is not called a slush fund, but a reelection fund, that is alright even thought the 2 things are the same]; but even that wasn’t the truth; it was really a fund to extort business and divert AWU funds into Wilson’s pockets.
Styant-Brown’s evidence is unequivovcal that Gillard knew the funds were going to be used for Wilson’s private use.
Does the PM stand above the law; if she does there is no law; as simple as that.
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 5:19 pm
Answers to Judith’s “unanswered” questions
Why did Gillard not set up a file when establishing the slush fund, aka AWU Workplace Reform Association? (Lack of attention to paperwork does not cut it; setting up files and clearing it with the other partners are critical to the operation of law firms.)
From the transcript of the Gillard press conference 23 August:
Was the AWU, a client of the firm, informed of the establishment of the fund? If not, why not?
Presumably the State Secretary (Bruce Wilson) would have authority to create Associations, but here is Gillard’s answer
Why did Gillard not inform the AWU of the misuse of the slush fund once she suspected this was occurring?
Why did Gillard not report matters to the police when she became aware of the fraud involved in the operation of the fund?
Did Gillard misrepresent the true purpose of the AWU Workplace Reform Association to the WA Corporate Affairs Commission? (Providing false information to government officials is potentially an offence.)
So I guess when you say “unanswered” you mean, I didn’t like the answer. Any other “unanswered” questions?
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 5:29 pm
That’s a blatant attempt to establish plausible deniability and nothing more. Considering that the Slater and Gordon were the law firm advising on – in actual fact, facilitating – the creation of a legal entity, it is still not plausible that you would not open a file. In fact, if her claim that she was only working on the fringes is correct, that is precisely the reason you would open a file. You would want the work you did and advice you gave and all other relevant issues and correspondence to be available to others when they started progressing the file once you’d moved on.
John Mc
24 Nov 12 at 5:37 pm
AWU scandal a storm in a teacup?
answer: yes
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 5:38 pm
I like Murdoch and I don’t like the ABC despite the fact that it’s colonised by the IPA, including Faine’s own show.
Scapula
24 Nov 12 at 5:39 pm
As I said John Mc, the fact that you don’t like the answer, doesn’t mean the question wasn’t answered. Do you know actually how easy it is to create an incorporated association? I don’t know why they even bothered with a lawyer.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 5:40 pm
Are you saying it’s normal, or even acceptable, for a law firm not to raise a file when they create an incorporated association? Even if it’s the local ping pong club?
John Mc
24 Nov 12 at 5:42 pm
Those answers do show she was wrong in setting up the association, was wrong to not set up a file and probably wrong in the information she provided to the WA Corporate Affairs Commission. My points precisely.
Judith Sloan
24 Nov 12 at 5:42 pm
Well, there is the question that’s going to nail her, of course….
“Jules, did you witness the POA in Perth when it was signed by the two parties?”
If she didn’t, it’s a crime against the Oaths Act to sign that she did, even if some statute of limitations saves her from prosecution, it would be impossible to continue as PM.
It’s all over she just doesn’t get that yet.
Alfonso
24 Nov 12 at 5:44 pm
Yeah, especially the slapper your having an affair with.
jumpnmcar
24 Nov 12 at 5:45 pm
No answers there. Just long winded pointless puffery to questions that don’t go to the heart of the matter.
Hardly a moment to refer back to.
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 5:45 pm
But apart possibly from the tainted evidence of Blewitt, what evidence is that she did not properly witness the document?
Scapula
24 Nov 12 at 5:46 pm
Yes.
In my case, fucking close.
De rigueur, when working for loved ones, open a file, especially when the loved one is the leader of a major client. A application for association is a serious business with tax implications; a file should have been opened; this exigency would have been even more apparent when Wilson instructed Gillard to prepare a POA for Blewitt:
No, as a matter of normal, standard, transparent legal practice.
No it isn’t.
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 5:46 pm
She wasn’t in Perth at the time matey.
Easy to prove.
The POA was also witnessed on a different date (careless,eh).
Alfonso
24 Nov 12 at 5:50 pm
She is an insult to lawyers. They open files well before disbursements or counsel’s fees are involved. She can’t even do puffery properly.
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 5:52 pm
Total bullshit, you create a not-for-profit association with standard constitution and self assess for tax exempt status. It’s a piece of cake. Of course as a lawyer I would expect you to explain how complicated it is, thus requiring a lawyer.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 5:53 pm
Therefore the letter from Gillard to the WA Corporate Affairs Commission would be of great interest.
The Commission was not authorised to register a slush / re-election fund. They had to be convinced it was for workplace safety.
How convenient that of all the millions of documents in the State Records Office in Perth, Gillard’s letter has gone missing.
jupes
24 Nov 12 at 5:53 pm
Judith, who set up the association?
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 5:54 pm
A not for profit association that raises funds for something other than what it is supposed to does have tax ramifications idiot.
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 5:55 pm
Tiny Brain, there were no fees or disbursements.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 5:55 pm
Are people asserting this answer is incorrect:
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 5:56 pm
PM: I’m glad you’ve asked me that question because it gives me the opportunity to clarify this. Working at Slater & Gordon in the industrial section as I did for a number of years, it was par for the course to routinely provide free advice to union officials and trade unions.
We worked closely with officials. We worked closely with trade unions. We would provide limited free advice to them. Of course at a particular point when a job became big or it was occasioning disbursements for the firm like court filing fees or barrister’s fees, a file would be opened.
so apparently limited free advice includes doing all the paperwork setting up a slush fund, conveyancing on a house and power of attorney.
Yep, makes as much sense of being unable to recall doing this when it was for your boyfriend, who somehow had the money to do all this despite supporting his wife and kids on the other side of the country. The same boyfriend for which it was clear, if not at the time, then a very short time later was a fraud, and caused you to lose your job. Riiight.
entropy
24 Nov 12 at 5:56 pm
TB, at the time Gillard claims she had no reason to question the reasons for creation of the association, thus the association was not designed to “raise funds for something other than what it is supposed to”. So again, no tax implications.
No you can of course assert that Gillard was lying in her answer. But that’s where there is no evidence.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 5:58 pm
Judith: as SteveC’s comment shows, Gillard can say something that she (and her supporters) will claim is an ‘answer’ to the ‘the key unanswered questions’ you pose (however far-fetched and absurd the answer may appear to others). She can also maintain the ‘I did nothing wrong’ line because what is right and wrong can be said (in this post-modern era) to be a matter of personal judgement.
This why it is critical that Gillard be pressed (as Michael Smith does so well) on quite specific issues (such as when she signed the power of attorney) which raise the question of whether she committed an offence.
If the focus is even primarily on your questions, Gillard can avoid issues that might lead to police investigation. I suspect that she and her Emily Lister sisters will threaten havoc if the parliamentary party seeks to remove her. A police investigation may be the only way to force her out.
Having said all this, I also suspect that the Coalition interest’s are better served if she does survive.
rafiki
24 Nov 12 at 5:58 pm
read it again dickhead. They open files well before disbursements or counsel’s fees are involved Her explanation is a lie.
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 5:59 pm
entropy there is a file on the conveyancing, as you would expect. It’s in the public domain. Duh, that’s where the POA issue comes from.
The association creation and the conveyancing are entirely separate matters.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:02 pm
TB, there were no fees or disbursements for the documents for the association, there never were planned to be any. It was free advice. You know what free means, don’t you?
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:04 pm
agreed
entropy
24 Nov 12 at 6:05 pm
My point exactly. All the arguments here are not that the questions are unanswered, but simply you don’t like or believe the answer. Why would you expect to get a different answer, simply by asking the same questions?
I’ll repeat Knott’s comment here, because it is the whole point:
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:07 pm
You deceitful turd SteveC.
That of course is bullshit. She is offering an analogy that has nothing to do with what she actually did for the fraudsters.
In the analogy she was describing what happens in laws offices each day. People will discuss their problem or potential legal work in an introductory phone call or face to face meeting with the lawyer. The lawyer then tells the client or potential client what will need to be done. That’s exactly what she was describing in her characterization of free legal advice.
That is not what happened in the chain of events that led to the rorting, of the firms that were strong armed and later the funds used privately.
So she did not answer the question you dishonest turd, she totally evaded it with a totally false analogy.
You’re a delusional arsehole, SteveC.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 6:07 pm
My role in relation to this was I provided advice as a solicitor. I am not the signatory to the documents that incorporated this association. I was not an office bearer of the association. I had no involvement in the working of the association. I provided advice in relation to its establishment and that was i
The fact she is the addressee on some of the correspondence proves she was instrumental in facilitating the association even though she was not a signatory. That with the transactions with the $5K, Wilson was her lover and the wider union involvement of all parties raises questions on both how morally she acted in terms of it being a slush fund, and whether she as acting within it.
John Mc
24 Nov 12 at 6:07 pm
JC, how long do you think it takes to create a document to create an incorporated association?
Read a bit further down:
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:10 pm
Steve, read it again. Her answer about not opening a file is simply a lie. As if she wouldn’t have opened a file and charged for it. Thats how they make money fuckwit. She knew it was on the nose.
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 6:11 pm
You are grasping at tendrils of sophistry, Judith. The only wrongs have been done by Blewitt and Wilson. Gillard has done nothing wrong.
She set up the association as a slush fund, which means its intention was to re-elect AWU officials, which was within the remit of the law. To reiterate: there is nothing illegal or unethical about a slush fund, per se. Left and right parties all use them. The alleged misuse of the fund was all on Wilson and Blewitt.
Gillard was following common S&G practice in not opening up a file for every single action she took for clients. No amount of bloviating from bush lawyers is going to prove otherwise. The alleged exploitation of this practice was all on Wilson and Blewitt.
Gillard supplied information to the WA CAC based on the notion that electoral funding is part of the remit of such associations under WA law, so again, despite wild flailing of arms Kermit style by hopelessly compromised partisans, there is no story here. The alleged fraud was all on Wilson and Blewitt.
m0nty
24 Nov 12 at 6:11 pm
Providing advice and setting it up are not the same thing.
Gab
24 Nov 12 at 6:12 pm
Lots of lawyers don’t charge for the intro. Mine doesn’t. I can call him, describe what I want done and then I am charged a fee on the work performed. Even high grade white shoe firms work that way.
The ambulance chasers she worked for even advertise enticing people to call them free of charge to describe the problem/legal issue.
You deserve a rabbit punch SteveC.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 6:12 pm
No, the house was purchased with association funds you fucking moron.
The association application required a seperate letter from Gillard vouchsafing the declared purpose; oh, gee that letter is missing from WA file.
For a full summary of the application and Gillard’s involvement with it and attempts to circumvent the complexities of the governing legal requirements see here.
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 6:12 pm
SteveC. The lying junior to Stevieliar QC. Ask his advice fuckhead
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 6:13 pm
Wilson used Gillard to set up the Association because he had tried to set it up himself but the application had been rejected as being too similar to an existing entity (ie the union).
A letter from S and G attaching the application and explaining the distinction (between the Association and the union) to the WA Corporate Affairs (or whatever it was called) did the trick.
This is one of the 2 damaging allegations against Gillard. The assumption is she did not tell WA CA that the Association was a slush fund (although that was her belief publically given to her partners). Therefore there may have been a misrepresentation here. This is serious stuff. Lawyers can act for for dodgers but they can’t bullshit on their behalf.
The difficulty is of course that the letter from S and G to WA CA has gone missing.
BTW I have put up a number of comments on this site all of which are stuck in moderation – I don’t see them ever coming out and I have no idea whether this one will come out, while the comments of other commenters go up. Not cool.
Podsnap
24 Nov 12 at 6:14 pm
John Mc, which “correspondence”
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:16 pm
You supersized degenerate… We know her then boyfriend and the other arseholes associated with him were using the same tactics as mafia stand over merchants to extract money from firms like Thiess in order to buy industrial peace.
You have the temerity to suggest there’s nothing wrong here per se.
Fuck, you have appalling ethics, Fat Boy.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 6:16 pm
Podsnap, I’m gald you used the word allegation. It would be useful for the debate if stuff people assert to be true, but for which they have no evidence would be regarded as allegations, rather than facts.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:17 pm
Why isn’t Thiess complaining?
Scapula
24 Nov 12 at 6:19 pm
What, at the same time the association was setup? I guess you are asserting that Gillard set up the association knowing it would be used to purchase the house. An allegation which of course she denies. Any evidence? Are you sure you’re a lawyer?
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:20 pm
read it again dickhead. They open files well before disbursements or counsel’s fees are involved Her explanation is a lie.
Tiny Dancer is right.
Files are sometimes not opened if you just give some off the cuff advice, but if a letter goes out then you open a file. The reason is obviously record keeping and insurance.
The fact that she opened no file for the Association is very suspicious and very negligent.
However you don’t lose your job as PM for not opening a file 17 years ago.
Podsnap
24 Nov 12 at 6:21 pm
Monty SteveC,
If Ms Gillard did nothing wrong, why did the S&G partners force her to resign forthwith when they became aware of the fraud?
candy
24 Nov 12 at 6:21 pm
Come on, [email protected] , it is fatuous to imply that by merely providing “an answer” JEG has provided a plausible answer.
In respect to the question relating to her responsbility to her client, the AWU, JEG avoids a direct answer by disparaging the journalist’s understanding of legal practice. At no time did she define whether she was taking instructions from her lover Bruce Wilson, or from the AWU National Executive, the only source authorised by AWU Rules to create a legal entity with AWU in its title.
I am also surprised that, to my knowledge, there has been no response to her “gobbledygook” description of her method of taking instructions:
“You do not, as a lawyer, take instructions from a client and then take it into your head to work out who you should be conveying those instructions to.”
And she was a partner for all those years?
But then, when you don’t open a file, it is easy to forget who your real client is. No wonder the partners got a little antsy in September 1995.
Vicki
24 Nov 12 at 6:22 pm
Why isn’t the Italian pastry shop in Brooklyn complaining even when the stand over man that picks up the monthly vig goes to jail for other transgressions, Bob, you lardball.
Thiess wrote the money off a long time ago, the firm is almost certainly under new management and the amount in consideration to what they turn over is chicken feed to them.
Christ, you’re retarded.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 6:23 pm
TB, Gillard says S&G provided lots of free advice. Nobody seems to have questioned that.
Again, the question is answered, you just don’t like the answer.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:25 pm
SteveC; Gillard prepared the application which had Wilsons and Blewitt’s signatures ratifying it; for a lawyer to say she had no meaningful part in the apllication is disingenuous when the lawyer has admitted that the declared purpose of the association was different from its actual purpose.
The WA authority of course queried it because of its simarlarity with an existing entity, the AWU, also an incorporated association; they would have had to be reassured that it had no association [sic] with the AWU; Gillard supplied that assurance.
Law operates on standards and one of those is the reasonable person standard; what would a reasonable person have done or thought in the circumstances which are subject to trial; lawyers are held to an even higher standard.
By those standards any lawyer would have had doubts about what they were being asked to do by Wilson; that is the general context for judging Gillard; but it is superflous because she has admitted that she knew the purpose of tha association was different from the declared purpose.
Gillard is guilty out of her own mouth. And you are an idiot out of yours.
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 6:26 pm
The question of not opening a file is a digression. Of course no one should lose their job, any job in fact, for simply not opening a file 20 odd years ago. That’s a red herring though. You should lose your job if you were involved in a heist.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 6:26 pm
Rebuttal Steve C.
First point:
She’s fudging. Providing free advice is different from writing to the WA Corporate Affairs Commission to set up an Association. It’s also ethically wrong to set up an association for a lover without informing either your partners or your firms clients.
Second point.
Fudging again. The “people giving me those instructions” was her lover. He worked for the AWU. The AWU was a client of her firm. She kept secret from both of them what she was doing for him. That’s NOT the way lawyers work. Well not ethical lawyers anyway.
Third point.
A lie. The matters being dealt with at the time of her interview were to do with a Victorian slush fund. NOT the slush fund that Gillard set up. They didn’t find out about that until six months later.
Fourth point:
Absolute bullshit. Which is why the letter to the WA Corporate Affairs Commission has gone missing. If she had stated that in her letter, the AWUWRA would never have been registered.
You Steve are a gullible fool.
jupes
24 Nov 12 at 6:27 pm
candy that is a matter of dispute between the other partners. Styant-Brown and Gordon have reported the matter differently. There is no particular reason tp believe Styant-Brown over Gordon.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:27 pm
I do chuckle at the fact that much of the “evidence” is strangely missing. That’s possibly a massive conspiracy to cover-up. Or perhaps the evidence doesn’t actually exist.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:29 pm
Yeah, I’m a lawyer and so is Styant-Browne who makes and supports the allegation.
You really are a dickhead.
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 6:29 pm
SteveC
Are you saying either Styant-Brown or Gordon – one of them – is a liar?
candy
24 Nov 12 at 6:30 pm
Agree JC – I wasn’t trying to raise a red herring (too many of those – the mortgage is the latest – which give Gillard/Faine etc the chance to derail the conversation).
There are 2 main allegations – misrep on the Association and the power of attorney.
Podsnap
24 Nov 12 at 6:30 pm
but strangely, there is no evidence.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:30 pm
no candy I’m saying recollections of different pople of why someone left an organisation 17 years ago are very likely to be different. Eye witnesses accounts to events yesterday are notoriously inconsistent! So to expect someone to have such good recall of what was happening 17 years ago is unrealistic.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:33 pm
Never a truer word said. What she says doesn’t stack up. The documents make it even worse.
Idiot is too kind
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 6:33 pm
And so is Gordon, and so was Gillard. Your point?
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:34 pm
Accurate points, cohenite and jupes. Puts paid to stevec’s frenetic defense of gillard’s dissembling.
It’s amusing how gillard’s memory is selectively acute.
Gab
24 Nov 12 at 6:37 pm
I guess you are asserting that Gillard set up the association knowing it would be used to purchase the house. An allegation which of course she denies. Any evidence? Are you sure you’re a lawyer?
Yeah, I’m a lawyer and so is Styant-Browne who makes and supports the allegation.
You really are a dickhead.
What does it matter if she knew or not ?
She helped the crooks set up an Association – she may have thought at the time that the money was going to stay there and be disbursed for various election related stuff (this is on achartiable view for her).
But at a later point she knew full well that money from the Association was going to buy a house. At that point she knows that her firm is being used to launder the money.
She can’t hide behind all this “I was in the IR Dept – I don’t know anything about the conveyance” bullshit.
No way a lawyer can make that argument.
BTW Catallaxy – thanks for letting my comments through.
Podsnap
24 Nov 12 at 6:37 pm
which allegation? That Gillard knew the association funds were used to purchase the house?
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 6:37 pm
There is a still a file in the State Records Office in Perth on the AWU WRA.
It is empty.
So you are probably right on both counts Steve. It is a cover up and the evidence no longer exists.
jupes
24 Nov 12 at 6:39 pm
SteveC – the frantic fantasist
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 6:41 pm
Pod
New players first get frisked, I think. That’s why your comments didn’t get through at the outset.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 6:41 pm
The S & G partners would remember full well dismissing a partner 17 years ago and the fraud and reasons for it.
It would have been a big deal to their firm and affected their reputation and viability.
It’s not like dismissing a filing clerk.
candy
24 Nov 12 at 6:41 pm
If she gets away with it, then they’ll have to revise
The map
Cato the Elder
24 Nov 12 at 6:47 pm
You’re the one who fucking asked; are you senile or is this just typical trolling.
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 6:49 pm
Minty
She set up the association as a slush fund, which means its intention was to re-elect AWU officials, which was within the remit of the law.
The fund was set up as the AWU Workplace Reform #1 Fund its purpose was for workplace safety and reform, NOT as a fund to re-elect dodgy union officials. That is misrepresenting the purpose of the articles of association to Corporate Affairs WA.
Left and right parties all use them.
Do they name them after an existing union without that unions knowlege and state they are for workplace safety and reform when that is clearly not the case? I think not.
The alleged misuse of the fund was all on Wilson and Blewitt.
Proof please, why was gillard at the house auction?, Why was Gillard following up on the mortgage documents when she denied any knowlege of them, Why did she not inform her CLIENT the AWU, when the bloke who was boning her set up a ‘slush fund’ with the name of the AWU in its conception.
Gillard was following common S&G practice in not opening up a file for every single action she took for clients.
I checked with S&G, they do not state this as common practice, a simple phone call would have told you this.
Gillard supplied information to the WA CAC based on the notion that electoral funding is part of the remit of such associations under WA law
That is patently untrue, she misrepresented the purpose of the fund.
The
allegedfraud was all on Gillard, Wilson and Blewitt.FTFY
Carpe Jugulum
24 Nov 12 at 6:52 pm
Into purple Cato ?
Gillardo delenda est.
Podsnap
24 Nov 12 at 6:53 pm
I think the partners all know the truth but how can they say as much, as she’s the PM now. Also Slater & Gordon as a firm have probably benefitted in some way from having a PM worked in their office.
It puts them in a difficult spot and I bet they wish it would all just go away!
candy
24 Nov 12 at 6:54 pm
SteveC
That Gillard knew the association funds were used to purchase the house?
But she has denied all knowlege of that.
Is there something you need to share with the group?
Carpe Jugulum
24 Nov 12 at 6:55 pm
If Styant-Browne is correct, and he has supporting documentation, then Gillard knew that the Wilson house purchase was with association funds well before her ‘departure from S&G in 1995. This means she must have known the association was being used by Wilson for personal defalcation; this would mean she is guilty of misprison apart from any possible personal involvement in Wilson’s alleged scam.
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 6:55 pm
Exactly candy.
One also has to wonder, when it comes to determining which one may be lying (Gordon or Styant-Brown), who has more to lose if the truth comes out and how much that is affecting what is being said.
Brian of Moorabbin
24 Nov 12 at 6:57 pm
cohenite
How does the misprision arise ?
It probably can’t be proven that she knew the Association money came from (basically) theft.
But she knows that the money for the house comes from the Association and goes to Blewitt/Wilson. So her firm is assisting embezzlement from the Association.
But can she then argue that the Association was in effect Wilson/Blewitt so she saw nothing wrong with it in effect going to them ?
I haven’t thought much about thus aspect of it.
Podsnap
24 Nov 12 at 7:02 pm
yes candy, but she wasn’t dismissed, she resigned some months later.
here’s what Styant Browne actually said on 7.30:
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 7:05 pm
[email protected]. You really need to get up to speed with this scam. Yes, unions regularly set up “slush funds” to finance reelection campaigns. But these entities are not incorporated and do not use “AWU” account description.
The incorporation of the AWUWRA facilitated the claiming of funds available through the WA Building & Construction Industry Training Fund, and gave a cloak of legitimacy to the transfer of funds from construction companies.
The WA branch of the AWU already had a “slush fund” for elections. The AWUWRA was set up without the knowledge of the state or federal executives, and it was set up for a very specific purpose.
Vicki
24 Nov 12 at 7:09 pm
cohenite:
Styant-browne
So no, what Styant-Browne is saying is that Gillard knew the house was purchased with a S&G mortgage, which has nothing to do with the association.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 7:09 pm
She knew the jig was up, Steve. She’d gone shonky over Wilson and they all knew it. They were probably courtly enough not to outright dismiss her, knowing that she would struggle to get a job in a legal setting again.
candy
24 Nov 12 at 7:13 pm
[email protected] : Me, too. Mine are posted long after the thread has moved on. Pity.
Vicki
24 Nov 12 at 7:15 pm
But the deposit was not S&G money it was from the slush fund.
Carpe Jugulum
24 Nov 12 at 7:16 pm
I think this applies to the slap…
JC
24 Nov 12 at 7:17 pm
So she jumped before she was pushed.
Carpe Jugulum
24 Nov 12 at 7:18 pm
Candy
“she resigned”.
That’s how high level people get booted.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 7:19 pm
If she knew of the S&G mortgage only a monkey would think that she was blissfully unaware of where the other funds came from. It must be wonderful to be so hopeless and inadequate yet be a partner at a law firm. Or she was in it up to her neck.
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 7:20 pm
Steve Twins, Fat Boy and fellow asshats..
Aren’t you even a little embarrassed in having to defend this woman. Lets say it can’t be proven she wasn’t in the middle of it.
What fucking PM have we ever had with friends like Wilson and Blewitt et al. These are first level shonksters.
There is of course room for the lying slapper in our shociety, but it’s not PM level.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 7:22 pm
You get the message.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 7:23 pm
Or she turned a blind eye to it given her loyalty to the union and her affair with Wilson, her client.
Gab
24 Nov 12 at 7:24 pm
Right JC.
And “The Goldfields Fatal Accident and Death Fund” should never be forgotten.
Imagine what Chif would make of this bullshit.
Podsnap
24 Nov 12 at 7:26 pm
steve says:
The purchase price exceeded the mortgage and the balance was made up of association funds.
Let’s face it steve, this is a formidable case against Gillard.
Podsnap:
Bolt has a good primer on the subject of misprison.
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 7:32 pm
Steve C says “I do chuckle at the fact that much of the “evidence” is strangely missing. That’s possibly a massive conspiracy to cover-up. Or perhaps the evidence doesn’t actually exist.”
SteveC-it is on the public record and an indisputable fact that 4-FOUR-lots of files in 3 different states all relating to Julia’s slush fund have gone missing. That is not a conspiracy-its a fact-I know facts are little light on the left (look at AGW)but even an airhead like you would know that that amount of coincidental loss of files relating to the same issue stinks to high heaven.Can u concede that or are you realy a typical lefty where being left means never having to admit you are wrong.
You are correct in stating they are only allegations so for me whether you are an idiot or not is purely an opinion. Defending this government though definitely puts you on the wrong side of the iq ledger. They are indisputably the most inept,incompetent,morally repugnant, corrupt goverment in living memory. Joh Bjelke -Perterson was positively Mother Theresa compared to this crowd.
kraka
24 Nov 12 at 7:35 pm
you know that how?
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 7:36 pm
Lets also not forget Michael Williamson ex President of the ALP and pea-in-pod with Bruce Wilson. And the MP’s for Embattled Slipper and Thomson.
The ALP needs a good cleanout. Start with union power junkies and work down from there to sycophants, nepotists (and their kids), ICAC interests and other crooks. Australia would do so much better if the left party wasn’t owned brains and balls by maniacs.
Bruce
24 Nov 12 at 7:40 pm
Steve C -
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/did_gillard_see_this_cheque/
see the cheque at the top of the post.
Podsnap
24 Nov 12 at 7:41 pm
Shit you are one dumb retard SteveC. The money from the slush fund is central to the issue
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 7:41 pm
Krarka
I vehemently disagree –
They are indisputably the most inept,incompetent,morally repugnant, corrupt goverment in living memory. Joh Bjelke -Perterson was positively Mother Theresa compared to this crowd.
I reckon the recently departed NSW Labor Government make this bunch look like Mother Theresa.
Podsnap
24 Nov 12 at 7:45 pm
Once abbott wins power there will definitely be a concerted effort to have a union rort make the front pages, allowing him to call a royal commission into the unions. The paper shredders will be working overtime once he is elected.
I know he could call one anyways but we all know the press gallery will call it vindictive-they wont have a leg to stand on if abbott waits for another rort to be exposed-and one will as the union is just one big rort.
kraka
24 Nov 12 at 7:46 pm
Gillard says she has never seen that cheque. How and where was the cheque deposited into S&G account? Stick to suburban solicitor work cohenite, you’re not cut out for prosecution work.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 7:52 pm
SteveC starts linking to Ben Eltham at The Dumb.
Why don’t you quote someone with real authority – like that nice Mr Bob Ellis or someone.
H B Bear
24 Nov 12 at 7:56 pm
It doesn’t really matter whether that letter can be found to e able to work out what it contained. Do you really think the WA authority would have allowed the Association to be formed under WA law if the Red Headed Dunderhead had responded to them with what she admits she knew from the beginning… that it was a slush fund? She had to have lied in that written response or the request would have been refused.
Who benefits from it going missing? That’s right…the Lying Slapper.
That’s dishonest behaviour from any citizen, let alone a liar.
Megan
24 Nov 12 at 7:57 pm
It’s a pretty simple concept. There are certain standard procedures with opening up an account like this. One of them is a formal file on the system, another is to check for sure whether the account is to be used for election purposes or for health an safety purposes (they are not the same thing BTW). Another would be to make very sure to inform both the union and the S&G partners. Anyone with half a brain would have made absolutely sure they had a rock solid paper trail to make sure they can prove they did everything exactly right.
I do chuckle at the fact that much of the “evidence” is strangely missing. That’s possibly a massive conspiracy to cover-up. Or perhaps the evidence doesn’t actually exist.
Most of the documents in question are known to have at least existed once. This is of course no proof that they exist now, but how exactly can you explain multiple documents vanishing from multiple places, including the Federal Court?
The very fact that documents can vanish at all is worth a detailed investigation, probably won’t happen, but if we never get to the bottom of it, how can we trust our justice system after that?
Tel
24 Nov 12 at 7:57 pm
One of the main reasons for opening a legal file is a conflict search – to see if a firm has potentially done work for someone on the other side of a matter.
Gillard knew she couldn’t do this with Wilson’s slush fund because that would give the game away – both to her partners and the AWU. Don’t forget all mail was going to a Northbridge PO box that only Wilson and Blewitt knew existed.
H B Bear
24 Nov 12 at 7:59 pm
Gillard’s answers as shown in Steve C’s transcript are very clever. She is one smart lawyer and it’s just a reminder of how impressive she seemed before she was elevated to the leadership position over Rudd. She will be hard at work this weekend preparing for the gruelling she’ll get in parliament. Unfortunately Michael Smith won’t be on the opposition benches. Concentrated fire is needed. She is very, very slippery.
henry
24 Nov 12 at 8:00 pm
Good advice steve; that’s what J. Howard did and look where it got him.
But seriously steve, you are a dickhead; the cheque was made out to S&G’s trust account and drawn from Wilson’s “slush fund”; since Gillard was handling Wilson’s affairs [sic] for gratis she would have wanted to keep on top of them [sic].
And what is her defence according to you:
You accept that do you; I guess some of that young and naive cool-aid has been trickling down your throat.
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 8:01 pm
Wow. There it is. The lying slapper says she didn’t see it. How would she know? She can’t remember anything. She lived in the house bought in Blewitt’s name. Not only her prints but her DNA is all over it you rambling offensive pimple. Is your IQ able to be measured Stevec or are you that dishonest?
First you didn’t know where the funds came from then you know she denied seei g the cheque. Are you dishonest or just dumb? I’d say dishonest. You can’t defend her without being dishonest. Cretin
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 8:05 pm
Pardon Steve C ?
How and where ? Hell of a non-sequitur. If I say it was sent by way of a homing pigeon to a DX box which S & G maintained in Las Vegas does that change the reality of the cheque ?
We have a copy of a cheque for roughly the balance of the purchase money from the Association to S & G, which pre-dated the purchase.
If you have someone who can be trusted on this (ie someone other than Gillard) who says that the balance of the purchase money didn’t come from this cheque then OK I’m listening.
Gillard says she knew fuck all about everything so no surprises there. Also she didn’t do the conveyance so no-one expects her to have sighted every document.
Podsnap
24 Nov 12 at 8:05 pm
Bloody iPad predictive text…not liar…LAWYER@
Megan
24 Nov 12 at 8:06 pm
Podsnap (and others) argue here that at a later point “she knew full well that money from the Association was going to buy a house”.
Taking this fact as the ultimate fact in issue, what are the primary facts that support an inference (at least on the balance of probabilities)? I can’t see that what Styant-Browne said is enough.
I think that in time, as more primary facts are established, this inference will be justifiable, but not yet. This is why I think Michael Smith’s digging for facts is so valuable.
rafiki
24 Nov 12 at 8:08 pm
H B Bear – nice one – I never thought of that. I think she just wanted no paper trail but this could have been a factor.
Podsnap
24 Nov 12 at 8:08 pm
SteveC – don’t be a dumbfvck, the deposit came from the ‘slush fund’ the balance came from a mortgage arranged via S&G that gillzilla directly queried in her own handwriting.
Carpe Jugulum
24 Nov 12 at 8:15 pm
Don’t be like that to Steve. It’s what he’s here for.
blogstrop
24 Nov 12 at 8:16 pm
two points on the conveyancing. Firstly Gillard says she didn’t do the conveyancing, a paralegal (Olive Brosnahan) at S&G did.
Secondly, the Slater & Gordon ledger suggests Blewitt deposited the cheque in the firm’s account at a Commonwealth Bank branch in Perth, meaning no-one at the firm might have seen it then (from the AFR).
Which is why I asked, where and how was the cheque deposited.
So there is no reason at all to assume Gillard knew the additional funds came from the Association funds and not from Blewitt.
So still, lots of allegations, all denied, and no evidence.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 8:17 pm
You might need a more main stream party to follow down that path !
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 8:19 pm
Steve C – so you now accept the reality of the cheque right ? Good we’ve made some progress.
Secondly, the Slater & Gordon ledger suggests Blewitt deposited the cheque in the firm’s account at a Commonwealth Bank branch in Perth, meaning no-one at the firm might have seen it then (from the AFR).
And that same ledger would have stated the name of the drawer of the cheque.
Seriously you are embarrassing yourself now.
Podsnap
24 Nov 12 at 8:22 pm
Can’t get away with that stevec, there is a mountain of evidence,
Even in a common traffic accident a street sign, weather conditions, road surface.. etc are all evidence pertinent to the incident.
Stop saying there is “no evidence”, find a new slogan.
jumpnmcar
24 Nov 12 at 8:28 pm
Steve
24 Nov 12 at 8:40 pm
Bruce Wilson says Gillard is innocent
Ah ha ha ha ha ha.
Septimus
24 Nov 12 at 9:03 pm
I’m sure a VicPol interview of Olive Brosnahan would be illuminating.
When Gillard’s fending off Bishop’s questions during next week’s QT can she be sure of what Olive B might say in a formal police interview? A reading of Olive’s annotaions on various docs indicates she was uneasy.
Steve of Ferny Hills
24 Nov 12 at 9:05 pm
Paralegals MUST be overseen by the acting solicitor, seriously steveC this is becoming risible.
Carpe Jugulum
24 Nov 12 at 9:05 pm
Is that the hand of a certain Scotsman up the back of Wilson’s shirt, speaking from the side of his mouth?
Spare me days. How much AWU / ALP money is he getting this time?
Septimus
24 Nov 12 at 9:12 pm
So, in summary for the defence: there is no evidence, because absolutely every document that should exist relating to the incident doesn’t exist, and to suggest that that is anything but an unfortunate coincidence is conspiracy theory lunacy on a par with alien abductions and Area 51.
Compelling. I shall attempt same on the tax office and see where it gets me.
wreckage
24 Nov 12 at 9:48 pm
podsnap, according to the AFR the ledger entry showed a direct deposit by Blewitt.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 9:59 pm
Is this you steve?
Solictors always check cheques steve; if Gillard knew about the mortgage, she knew about the association cheque.
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 10:03 pm
You could join the same prosecution team as cohenite.
There’s plenty of evidence the association was used for many fraudulent purposes. The allegation is that Gillard knew at the time the association was created that is was for fraudulent purposes and more specifically that it was used for the purchase of the Kerr Street property.
If you know of evidence, other than the rather unreliable testimony of Blewitt, then I’m keen to hear it. What you have is supposition, not evidence.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 10:05 pm
cohenite, if the cheque was deposited in a bank branch by Blewitt in Perth and Gillard is in Melbourne, how would you expect her to check the cheque?
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 10:06 pm
Why do you think his statements to the police are “unreliable”?
Gab
24 Nov 12 at 10:10 pm
I’d love to know the threats or inducements that have lured Brucie boy out of the kitchen at Nelson Bay Diggers to Julia’s defence.
BTW, has anyone here ever been required to exercise a Power of Attorney? I had to do so on my husband’s behalf for business purposes while he was briefly in the rathouse (co-incidentally, he served in 2RAR with Ralph Blewitt in Vietnam in early 1967).
When my husband and I exchanged POA in 1998, it was like our wedding in 1975. We each signed the forms in front of our lawyer and two of his paralegals as witnesses, with all signatures witnessed by all five of us.
When I was required to use my husband’s POA for signing company documents, I not only had to produce the original POA, but our solicitor had to verify that I was the person who held the POA and put his signature to documents verifying that I held the POA.
How Gillard and Wilson got away with that property purchase on a dodgy POA, let alone the subsequent sale (NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THIS)is beyond me.
I’m OK with Ralph Blewitt’s version of events, because I don’t think he had a clue and other people did.
mareeS
24 Nov 12 at 10:12 pm
Oh God. You’re kidding?
C.L.
24 Nov 12 at 10:23 pm
steve says:
Steve, the cheque was sent to S&G’s offices; nobody other than an authorised member of the relevant law firm can deposit funds into a lawyer’s trust-fund.
You’re such a meat-head.
Gillard was in charge of the conveyancing of Wilson’s shack; the managing director of S&G, Andrew Grech, says so.
Or, are you saying he is now part of the anti-Gillard conspiracy?
cohenite
24 Nov 12 at 10:24 pm
SteveCock. Making it up as he goes. It’s a bit odd Stevie. You are making yourself look incredibly dumb or dishonest.
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 10:26 pm
no, Tiny, he’s just ‘young & naive’.
Gab
24 Nov 12 at 10:27 pm
No I’m not. He was that sort of pretentious dickwad even then.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 10:31 pm
JC, why was he against the Concorde?
Gab
24 Nov 12 at 10:32 pm
Welcome aboard Podsnap, hope you can stay.
Team, for all that he us frustrating, SteveC is performing a valuable service: he is causing us to sharpen our arguments about what Gillard actually did wrong. We should be welcoming him, and every other ‘slothful inductor’ (like Jon Faine), with open arms. Their refusal to see the obvious is showing us the way forward.
I am the Walrus koo koo k'choo
24 Nov 12 at 10:34 pm
JULIA Gillard’s former boyfriend Bruce Wilson says the Prime Minister knew “absolutely, categorically nothing” about a 1990s union fraud.
In the words of Mandy Rice-Davies, “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?”.
Well, Your Honour, do we prefer the evidence of the fraudster or the bag-man?
H B Bear
24 Nov 12 at 10:37 pm
Who – as in which media outlet, organisation or public figure, is making that allegation? Seems like Gillard would love to have an allegation to refute. This simple question-asking that everyone’s doing must be excruciating.
“Make an accusation you fuckers! Go on! just make an accusation!”
“nope. But can you just explain something else for us….”
dd
24 Nov 12 at 10:37 pm
Judith Sloan, you are one of the most trenchant and entertaining commentators writing at the moment.
Cath
24 Nov 12 at 10:40 pm
Faine and the all the rest of the Labor supporters at the ABC will be held up as the principal reason when the corporation is privatised. Yes, Faine is deliberately flaunting the ABC charter for which he could be held criminally liable but it is the nameless faceless Labor management boffins who control the entire ratbag organisation who are the real criminals. It is to be hoped that PM Abbott actually does something about this $1.5 billion per annum Labor PR and spin machine rather than turn the other cheek like PM Howard did for a decade. No one NEEDS the ABC except Faine and others employed by it. There are far more worthy and important areas of expenditure for the federal government than the ABC. At the very least it should be merged with the TEN network and then sold on to the markets with the resultant tens of billions made for the government used to pay down Labor debt. The ACTU/ALP could buy a stake in it as part of the privatisation and start paying for it’s news and current affairs spin.
davey street
24 Nov 12 at 10:49 pm
Because it was loud and was supposed to impact the stratosphere or some shit like that. It was supposed to be very polluting. “Pollution” was the big word then like glimate change is now. There was a lot of opposition to the bird at the time and the left was against it of course.
He was a douchebag even then Gab. He ran with a really despicable group of kids from memory.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 10:50 pm
Via Vox Popoli. Though *some* may argue economists give them a run fair there money.
Greg P.
24 Nov 12 at 10:52 pm
Coz he hated the French maybe?
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacist!!!!!!!!!!!!
Splatacrobat
24 Nov 12 at 10:55 pm
No he doesn’t. He’s a first rate moron and troll.
Bullshit. He ought to be booted outta here with a size 10 like the rest of the nitwits.
Boot him. We don;t need to be shown the way forward by the likes of him and the other morons.
They have no fucking personal ethics or integrity. It’s one thing to have a leftwing government/PM. That’s how the ball rolls unfortunately. But it’s an entirely different thing to support a crook or someone that hung around with lowlife and was booted out of her job because unprofessional conduct.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 10:57 pm
JC – is their specific evidence Gillard was canned from her job because of unprofessional conduct?
Sorry if this is a dumb question, I haven’t been following the details.
Greg P.
24 Nov 12 at 11:04 pm
Specific as in a letter of termination? No. You don’t really get fired like that in professional jobs. She resigned her relatively high paying job, was outta work for 6 months and then finally she scored a job with Steve Bracks as a “poldical” adviser.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 11:08 pm
That Styant-Browne dude more or less said she was booted.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 11:09 pm
Thanks.
Greg P.
24 Nov 12 at 11:12 pm
Having been a partner in two National law firms,I have to say that Gillard’s behaviour was totally inept if not shady. Even if you give free advice, you open a file and do the job pro bono, with the agreement of your partners.
What this whole affair proves is that it is possible to get to the top in the ALP whilst having little integrity and less wisdom. Will it mean the end of Gillard? I doubt it. ALP people don’t resign unless they have to, as they have no honour or class. This government is full of idiots who are still stuck in adolescence, wanting to change everything in a hurry without thought of the consequences. Giving up because everyone thinks you’re a lying slapper isn’t something in the ALP makeup. This is more true because a lot of the media pundits are similar characters. In fact you get the ALP ministers and the journos to witch roles for a while and no-one woulod notice the difference.
Rococo Liberal
24 Nov 12 at 11:15 pm
Why would the Australian Government do this?
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2012/11/ralph-blewitts-rar-mates-from-afghanistan-being-investigated-for-calling-in-support.html
Gab
24 Nov 12 at 11:27 pm
SteveC said:
As I said John Mc, the fact that you don’t like the answer, doesn’t mean the question wasn’t answered. Do you know actually how easy it is to create an incorporated association? I don’t know why they even bothered with a lawyer.
The reason they needed a layer is that they were desperate to get this entity up and running. The scam was already under way with invoices in the name of the AWU-WRA already issued to Thiess Contractors. Heir initial application had been rejected by the WA authorities and they needed a bank account to collect the cash being extorted.
Wilson and Blewitt travelled to Melbourne to meet with Gillard to get it done properly. To be sure, Bernard Murphy now a Federal Court judge appointed by Gillard was co-opted to help out. There were now 2 partners involved in this matter which Gillard did not regard as significant enough for a file.
After the provision of that advice, the application was submitted by Blewitt and it was still stalled by the WA authorities because of doubts about its bona fides. Gillard personally corresponded with the authorities ensuring them that all was above board.
Wilson didn’t decide after he had this vehicle to then start his scam. t was already in train. He would not have been able to pull it off unless the AWU-WRA was kept secret. Opening a file and seeking authorisation from the AWU executive for this entity would have alerted the S&G partners and the AWU to ask questions. This was no accident or oversight on Gillard’s part. It was critical to the success of the scam.
All the other lies she told about the property purchase and the house renovations are consistent with concealing from her partners and her client, the AWU, what was going on. All the documentation now available supports this conclusion. Gillard is rapidly approaching the end game.
Amortiser
24 Nov 12 at 11:32 pm
Why then does the AFR article say it was deposited in a bank branch in Perth?
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 11:33 pm
Just a thought for our (perhaps) professional trolls. Despite some of the more colourful descriptions of the powers of royal commissions on this blog, be very aware, that the subpoena powers are extremely broad. A savvy crew of counsel assisting could very well look into any Scottish inspired presence on line. If of course there is ever a RC into the AWU.
Oh and while I am at it could we ffs stop using base Americanisms in relation to our law. There is no fing such thing as a “statute of limitations” in relation to criminal matters. As Cato ably pointed out earlier it is a statute by statute thing. Cold Hands you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to take legal advice from Richo.
Just Another bloody Lawyer
24 Nov 12 at 11:38 pm
Labor should dispatch someone to Malaysia to see what Blewitt got up to there, or is anyone suggesting that he changed his ways after St Julia?
Scapula
24 Nov 12 at 11:39 pm
I don’t know about the media, but most of the posters on this thread are certainly making that allegation.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 11:40 pm
What do you think, SteveC. Do you think she’s completely innocent of any transgressions and that S&G wrongly booted her?
JC
24 Nov 12 at 11:43 pm
How would that be pertinent to the questions about the Lying Slapper and his assertions, Bob?
What I reckon ought to be investigated is why on earth the Chipmunk gave you a job as his speechwriter if for no other reason than the old NSW labor thing of jobs for the buddies.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 11:47 pm
Yes MareeS, plenty of times for my mother. She signed it in WA with her solictor as witness. It was mailed to me and I signed it in NSW to accept the appointemt, on a different date, and was witnessed by my wife. Every bank, insurance company and share registry is perfectly happy with a copy certified by a JP. It’s not a big deal.
SteveC
24 Nov 12 at 11:47 pm
If she signed it under her married name it isn’t valid, you doofus. Of course she may have signed it under her maiden name or kimberly, your plastic sex doll, signed.
JC
24 Nov 12 at 11:59 pm
Solicitors, clerks, whoever does the conveyancing knows where every cent comes from. She was sleeping with the bloke. Trust accounts have plenty of details. You’re boring now. Go and lick some windows stevie
Tiny Dancer
24 Nov 12 at 11:59 pm
SteveC, I’ve had to use the POA in quite public matters, including dealings with a certain prominent ad-man and a prominent beer brand, and I can tell you that the POA I exercised while my husband was out of action had to be verified by the solicitor who drew it up and witnessed it with his staff in our presence. Mr S…and his partners wouldn’t have accepted anything less from me.
The POA that Gillard “witnessed” on another side of the continent two weeks before it was signed is the thing that’s going to bring her down.
However you want to look at it, that’s corrupt practice.
mareeS
25 Nov 12 at 12:21 am
Labor should dispatch someone to Malaysia to see what Blewitt got up to there, or is anyone suggesting that he changed his ways after St Julia?
Perhaps they can do that after they dispatch someone to look at all the rorts Wilson perpetrated.
You know – pirating oil rigs, stealing money from a widows and orphans fund etc
Seriously it’s clear to all that Wilson was the prime mover and Blewitt was just a minor bagman. If you’ve got something more on him then bring it.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 12:29 am
The POA allegation is serious. Very serious. Forget the intricacies of what law applies to the POA. If a lawyer falsely witnesses a document then they are up for the high jump.
And the client’s word will be taken over yours if you were foolish enough to have no file notes.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 12:32 am
The widows’ and orphans’ fund is the real killer for me. Gillard was there on the spot, backing up her fella Brucie, and hey presto! a million bucks disappeared. WHERE IS IT?
mareeS
25 Nov 12 at 12:36 am
Poor SteveC, having to tell a bunch of Inspector Cluelesses a key point that has been noted in the media for at least a week or two: the balance of funds used to purchase the house were deposited in Perth. Gillard could not have seen the cheque. There is no evidence the firm’s bankstatement identified the payer of the cheque.
I have been sayingfor a long time that Wilson is key to this, and that it is mighty suspicious that Smith has said he has spoken to him, but has said nothing AFAIK about Wilson’s attitude to this.
Wilson was quoted weeks ago making a brief comment in support of Gillard.
He now has made the clear statememt that Gillard knew nothing.
This man has every reason to be seriously pissed off with Gillard if she were letting him carry the can for something she knew about.
His exoneration of her counts for a hell of a lot.
I suspect Wilson has said this to Smith weeks ago, and Smith has kept quiet about it.
steve from brisbane
25 Nov 12 at 12:37 am
Interesting contortions stepford. You believe Wilson but have problems believing Blewitt.
Oh please, just fuck off.
JC
25 Nov 12 at 12:41 am
Blewitt is a crook and a conman. Wilson is a crook and a conman. But SFB believes Wilson because he said that woman done nothing wrong. Hilarious.
Gab
25 Nov 12 at 12:43 am
Steve C…..
If you try very very hard not to see, then of course you won’t see.
Julia Gillard must explain to Australians why she gave Slater and Gordon a completely different description of the AWU Workplace Relations Association from that which she had given to the WA Corporate Affairs Commission.
The version she described to the WA Corporate Affairs Commission, was approved only after Gillard vouched for the bona fides of the association in response to a challenge from the WA Corporate Affairs Commission.
So she knew the Commission was suspicious at the time , and they had every right to be, as its ultimate use was for matters expressly precluded under the rules of its approval.
A normal law-abiding person with innocent intent, would do everything possible thereafter to make sure that the entity he/she had vouched for , was operating in accordance with the rules.
It would be a matter of preserving her own integrity and credibility.
But she insists we must believe that she asked no questions and made absolutely no checks from then on—even though the person running the Association was her boyfriend.
Consequently, any reasonable person would conclude that Gillard knew it wasn’t as she had vouched for—especially when she saw a block of flats being bought in WA, and then the property in Fitzroy.
Likewise no reasonable person would accept that , after drawing up the POA, and allegedly [ and she hasn’t denied it] purporting to have witnessed the signature of Blewitt when she didn’t—and stood with her boyfriend while he bid successfully for the property, and presumably paid a deposit on the spot, as in NSW—-and then handled the conveyancing and the provision of the mortgage by S&G, and the deposit by AWU cheque—all the way through, her boyfriend signing for bagman Blewitt—then stayed with her boyfriend at the property—all this, and she didn’t wonder or ask why AWU was involved in Blewitt’s supposed purchase, and why Blewitt himself was so little involved??
She has recently claimed that she wasn’t involved in the conveyancing—and yet she didn’t deny that she was, in the S&G interview, when they asked her why she didn’t open a file on the conveyancing ‘on the system’. She just said she didn’t think to—confirming that she did do the conveyancing.
She claimed the off-system conveyancing file had been given to someone, but while she was away, it was found in her cabinet.
It’s not reasonable in the light of that, to believe that she wouldn’t have been aware of the S&G mortgage and the deposit paid in the name of AWU—and any halfway normal person who knew what she knew, would have suspected, if not known , that S&G’s client AWU was funding the purchase of a house for Gillard’s boyfriend and his bagman, for Gillard and the boyfriend to live in—completely unbeknownst to the AWU.
Now with files having gone missing in four states, it all reads like a crime novel—a criminal conspiracy—with the missing files all related to one matter—the connection between the Australian Prime Minister and an alleged fraud and money-laundering operation that’s been covered up for seventeen years.
With the alleged criminal deliberately allowed to go scot free—the very large amount of money never recovered—and calls for a Royal Commission and national Crime Authority investigations brought to an end after people calling for them were placed in high-powered jobs—-Australia is owed more than continued dodging and weaving in parliament and out.
Australia shouldn’t have to swallow that because some influential union people like Shorten, Kelty and others ‘would be history’ if the truth were to be told at a Royal Commission, arrangements had to be made that allowed a woman with unresolved issues in a fraud and money-laundering case to go all the way to the Prime Ministership of our precious country.
We’re owed a full-on judicial inquiry with wide powers.
What sort of sovereign risk would potential and actual investors see in all this— Australian decision-making at the highest levels in the hands of a Prime Minister who has allegedly lied to parliament to dodge accountability under the law.
She is one of the worst amongst us—not the best , as a PM should be.
truth
25 Nov 12 at 12:47 am
His exoneration of her counts for a hell of a lot.
Shit yeah. He’s the judge here mate. Put a wig on him, give him a gavel. I look forward for the judgment.
Fucking idiot.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 12:47 am
If we took all the facts as they are and imagined that Gillard had no personal relation with the perpetrator of the fraud, then what would be left?
Nothing, really.
Its the personal relation that leads to the speculation.
Why would the firm be interested in her treatment of the file if she had not been the boyfriend of one the perpetrators of the fraud?
They wouldn’t be.
Her involvement with the guy placed her under a prima facie suspicion of either having benefited or being in a position that she should have known.
The ended up giving her the benefit of the doubt for good reason.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 12:48 am
Blewitt has said, u two dimwits, that he knew next to nothing about what Wilson was doing in Victoria.
He also barely knew Gillard, I think he has said.
The key man to know what Gillard knew is Wilson.
That he exonerates her, and takes the blame himself, is very significant.
There is no doubt about that.
Blewitt made it clear he had trouble remembering what had happened. His sister rang up Paul Murray to call him completely crooked. Blewitt made it completely clear he thought Smith had been hard done and was here to support him, his roomie.
I could be wrong, but I suspect Blewitt’s evidence is going to go no where.
steve from brisbane
25 Nov 12 at 12:55 am
The ended up giving her the benefit of the doubt for good reason.
But they didn’t give her the ‘benefit of the doubt’ did they ?
and imagined that Gillard had no personal relation with the perpetrator of the fraud, then what would be left?
I don’t know what to tell you chief – you see (taking your argument at face value and definitely not buying it) she did have a personal relationship with him. Maybe you should have used the word ‘wishing’ rather than ‘imagining’.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 12:56 am
Steve
We all know Blewitt will talk only about the POA. He was just a bagman – he knew nothing about Wilson’s devious schemes.
Wilson knows the lot. Guess we will know everything when he gives a full and frank interview.
On his deathbed.
You fucking idiot.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 1:00 am
SFB, gillard could knee you in the groin and you’d say she didn’t do it. You have no credibility at all on the topic and even less knowledge.
Gab
25 Nov 12 at 1:03 am
Truth has mucked up a lot in his comment; too much to bother going through.
It is typical of people who prefer to believe that scientists are in on a socialist plot to make up AGW, rather than just doing their job, that they would also have a vastly overinflated and unwarranted confidence that they can see what “really” happened here.
steve from brisbane
25 Nov 12 at 1:05 am
Steve – look we’ve all had a few drinks – it’s 1 am after all but maaaaate – bringing up global warming on an AWU thread.
Can I have some of the shit you’ve been snorting ?
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 1:09 am
Wilson ran and he hid, up at Fingal Bay for quite a few years, but he’s been outed. And told to behave like a good boy.
How would that be, Brucie, Big Bill had you as a future PM, and Julia got the job.
If I were you, Bruce, I’d be tipping a very big buvket of shit over her.
How much are they paying you to keep your mouth shut, mate? Seven figures???
mareeS
25 Nov 12 at 1:11 am
Gab, ex boy friends who have been called out in the national media by their ex as being deceptive crooks don’t usually have much incentive to exonerate said girlfriend if in fact she was a co- conspirator.
I’m not surprised that you won’t admit that, because your loathing of Gillard is all encompassing.
steve from brisbane
25 Nov 12 at 1:12 am
Yeah, you’ve been known to be.
Infidel Tiger
25 Nov 12 at 1:19 am
Steve –
No-one says she was a co-conspirator Sherlock.
I doubt she received any stolen monies. But she facilitated the laundering of stolen money. You get that right ?
I mean blind freddie in her position would have worked that out – right ?
But hey – rhetorical question. You’re a fucking shill.
By the way as I said before – can you hook me up with some of that shit you’ve been huffing ?
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 1:20 am
He’s so reliable he’s talking to the police isn’t he Stevieliar QC? Who cares about Blewitt or Wilson. She’s gone on her interview and the documents. Happy days.
Did your wife steal any bread today?
Tiny Dancer
25 Nov 12 at 1:24 am
So Blewitt knows next to nothing and Wilson says she did nothing.
No story – move on – there is no scandal – none.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 1:31 am
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 1:35 am
So Blewitt knows next to nothing and Wilson says she did nothing.
No story – move on – there is no scandal – none.
Well there are those unhelpful documents……
You would be a great lawyer for a murderer Scapula.
“Well your honour, my client says he didn’t kill the girl with an axe, his mother agrees with that, and of course the victim is not giving evidence today”
Seriously…….
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 1:36 am
Classic – you have actually bolded Wilson’s press release.
Are you pissed ? Or stupid ?
Don’t answer that…..
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 1:38 am
And from the Australian:
And Wilson was the brains behind the fraud, not the brawn.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 1:38 am
So her law firm dropped the inquiry and now the principal of the fraud says she did nothing and don’t believe anything Blewitt might say.
No story – move on – there is no scandal – none.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 1:41 am
By the way, Tony Abbott as a politician lied on national TV about funds to pursue and (effectively) jail a fellow politician.
You obviously forgave him for that (as did I, in that I still voted for Howard.)
Yet I am supposed to be renting my shirt over Gillard, 17 years ago, before she is a politician, saying in the workplace that she “didn’t think” she knew about the mortgage 2 years ago. A mortgage which was of itself no proof of any illegality.
In the question of “when dishonesty matters”, your judgement is of course out of all proportion because of your preexisting loathing of Gillard.
steve from brisbane
25 Nov 12 at 1:42 am
Yes, nothing more than the Lord of the Catallaxy flies around here due to a sociolpathic lack of sympathy for the Labor Party.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 1:45 am
And glory be to God, its Sunday and we can all watch the boltshit about how all this means nothing and there are still questions to answer.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 1:47 am
So her law firm dropped the inquiry and now the principal of the fraud says she did nothing and don’t believe anything Blewitt might say.
No story – move on – there is no scandal – none.
I didn’t know law firms held ‘inquiries’ shit for brains.
If they did ‘hold an inquiry’ here then she got ejected at the end of it.
But keep bolding that shit – it’s working real well.
You say Wilson was ‘the brains’ not ‘the brawn’.
Who was the brawn then chief ? I didn’t know you needed brawn to launder stolen money.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 1:47 am
Scap, have you any outside interests that don’t involve posting at the Cat? You have all the hallmarks of a bot but without the personality.
Infidel Tiger
25 Nov 12 at 1:48 am
Romney lost the election, you losers!
And you just lost your AWU scandal, losers!
Suck it up, Podsnap et alii.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 1:50 am
I only came back on, IT, to rub your nose in your own excrement.
Thread after thread, post after post – all about nothing.
I said it was a Seinfeld scandal, or a Clayton’s one, and there you are.
Nada.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 1:53 am
no cockhead. You go into your room with a women’s weekly by yourself and get stuck into it. Only an utter moron could have brought Abbot into this. Fuck you’re cheap. Go and eat some stolen bread.
Correct but can you stop pulling cones? It makes you a retard.
Tiny Dancer
25 Nov 12 at 1:53 am
Well I think we all know now who can handle their piss and who can’t.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 1:54 am
The word you’re looking for is rending, Steve.
C.L.
25 Nov 12 at 1:55 am
“…a complete retard.” You’ve already got plenty to work with.
Tiny Dancer
25 Nov 12 at 1:55 am
Scappy, your beloved ALPGREENS are going to be beaten harder than a deviate at the Hellfire Xmas party.
Mz Gillard will surely survive this scandal but will live in infamy as a twice unelected succubus who sent the country broke during a once in a century boom. She’s a deplorable shameless hate filled harpy beneath our contempt. May we soon forget she ever disgraced us.
Infidel Tiger
25 Nov 12 at 1:57 am
I wish I did indeed have some champagne to celebrate.
Its not often something is so clearly hit on the head.
Its a pity in some ways because Abbott looked close to geting too involved in this stupidity this week and gretsching himself badly.
You got gretsched, so learn your lesson.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 1:59 am
Oh and by the way scrofula – stay tuned for the election in this country in a little while….
It will be a fucking landslide.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 1:59 am
LOL.
What was it Wayne Swan said today?
Oh yeah – we should never ever take the word of a self-confessed crook.
C.L.
25 Nov 12 at 2:00 am
The state goes on much the same no matter what party is in power.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 2:01 am
Mastered potty training have we?
Infidel Tiger
25 Nov 12 at 2:02 am
Yes, CL. I don’t think I was aware of the mistake at the time.
(This last statement no doubt has just ended my potential future as a politician.)
steve from brisbane
25 Nov 12 at 2:02 am
This is the sort of shit that fortune cookie message scribblers turn out when they have writers block.
Infidel Tiger
25 Nov 12 at 2:04 am
So CL believes in the judgement of Wayne Swan, now, and so you should he’s the world’s greatest treasurer.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 2:05 am
Really, IT, how come a lot of political science comes to that conclusion? Of course, a lot of it accentuates the differences between parties, but that’s another story.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 2:07 am
The man who commented -
“Romney lost the election, you losers!
And you just lost your AWU scandal, losers!
Suck it up, Podsnap et alii.”
says this after being reminded of the shellacking the ALP will get in the next AUSTRALIAN election -
The state goes on much the same no matter what party is in power.
What a fucking joke you are.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 2:09 am
I see on his website that Smith tonight refers to all the conversations he has had with Wilson. He says something cryptic about all the times Wilson told him he (Wilson) was chivalrous.
What I want to know, Smith, is “did Wilson tell you months ago that Gillard knew nothing? If so, why did you keep that from us?”
steve from brisbane
25 Nov 12 at 2:11 am
The state created civilisation, podsnap, look it up!
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 2:12 am
The fact that Gillard’s misconduct led to S&G losing a lucrative client such as the AWU meant that the firm would take a dim view of her behaviour irrespective of the identity of her undocumented “client”. That this “client” was her boyfriend only compounds the unprofessional nature of her conduct.
Cold-Hands
25 Nov 12 at 2:20 am
I’m suitably chastened re. legal advice from Richo.
Cold-Hands
25 Nov 12 at 2:22 am
Character references for Blewitt from the Herald Sun:
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 2:24 am
A patron of brothels, you say?
C.L.
25 Nov 12 at 2:27 am
Im sure the office was happy for all the business they could get, but when one set of clients come into conflict with another there’s an issue, but that’s got nothing to do with the lawyers involved whose only task is their respective clients.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 2:28 am
Brothel patron? Without a HSU card? Hey, maybe Blewitt is the man who “stole” Thomson’s credit card and phone?!
Gab
25 Nov 12 at 2:29 am
hahahaha you talk a lot of shit, Crapula.
Gab
25 Nov 12 at 2:30 am
Brothel patron? Without a HSU card? Hey, maybe Blewitt is the man who “stole” Thomson’s credit card and phone?!
Threadwinner.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 2:31 am
I’m an agnostic on all political scandals, Scap.
I don’t care if it’s all substantive or not.
The important thing is to keep associating Gillard’s name with words like “criminal,” “fraud,” “slush fund,” “rort,” “theft,” “bagman,” “married ex-lover,” “secret payment,” “Bill the Greek,” “missing documents,” and “police.”
Whatever it takes.
They’re the rules – as stipulated by Julia Gillard and her puppeteer, John McTernan.
C.L.
25 Nov 12 at 2:32 am
Scrappy’s like that all the time. Alcohol has nought to do with it.
Gab
25 Nov 12 at 2:33 am
You clowns are going to keep on pretending nothing happened, that’s par for the course, but you’re looking even more stupid than I could have ever possibly imagined. From the look of Boltshit’s website that’s his tack as well, Good luck!
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 2:33 am
And Scrappy always, always has to have the final word.
Gab
25 Nov 12 at 2:35 am
An honest man, at last, who is not aftraid to state that its a political strategm. Well, keep it up then, if you want. But it just got a heck of a lot harder to sustain this right wing scam. Moreover, this has been my thesis all along and its the first time you have agreed with me.
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 2:38 am
Good to see the blow torch is still being applied to Gillard.
dover_beach
25 Nov 12 at 2:39 am
Don’t know, Tom. On one thread Scrappy vilifies Murdoch on another thread Scrappy declared he “likes” Murdoch. He’s not as good at lying as a certain red-headed slapper.
Gab
25 Nov 12 at 2:42 am
As has been mentioned to you before, Scrappy, only union men and labor men have been telling the tale to reporters.
Gab
25 Nov 12 at 2:45 am
With Fairfax and the ABC involved, obviously.
C.L.
25 Nov 12 at 2:50 am
I’d happily sit down with Ralph over a beer or three, just for the interesting tales to be told from previous days.
And I wouldn’t take his sister’s testimony too seriously. Speaking from personal experience with judgmental sisters…
As for brothels, so what?? Men do frequent those places, but while we’re at it, let’s get the inquisition/Royal Commission on to the kiddy fiddlers in the Labor and legal ranks, of whom I can tell a tale or two, presently and from years past.
mareeS
25 Nov 12 at 2:52 am
Gillard’s client was the AWU. Her undertaking work for Wilson was a clear conflict of interest and unprofessional behaviour, some would say unethical. Her failure to open a file was a deliberate attempt to mislead both her paying client and her firm. Spin as much as you like but there is no excuse that explains her failure of her obligations to the AWU.
Cold-Hands
25 Nov 12 at 2:59 am
Small beer, old chum, and flat stale beer.
And its your version of it, as well.
Firms with conflicting clients, boring story!
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 3:05 am
Scapula, people with conflicting clients are not a boring story. They are crooks.
mareeS
25 Nov 12 at 3:15 am
Unsinn!
Scapula
25 Nov 12 at 3:24 am
Blewitt and Wilson were both in involved in the AWU-WRA scam.
One of those men has gone to the Victorian police to give an official statement of what he knew, that same man also states that he is happy to give an official statement to the Western Australian police. If he has lied to the police, then he could be charged with perjury, with a maxiumum penalty of ten years imprisonment.
The other man has told a journalist that the lawyer-at-time was innocent. I don’t know of any official consequences for lying to a journalist, I expect people do it all the time, especially people with a crooked and devious past.
So dear readers, who out of the two men has the most to lose from lying, and thus the greatest incentive to tell the truth?
And which of the two men will the Labor trolls here be heralding as the bastion of truth-telling?
A Lurker
25 Nov 12 at 6:51 am
Faine and Gillard have at least one thing in common – a truncated legal career.
I wonder why Faino’s career was abbreviated.
I didn’t hear the interviews but the later talk-back was telling. Faine actually tried to dismiss a caller with “lawyers do dodgy things for dodgy clients all the time”.
The caller smacked Faino down brilliantly by replying along the lines of “maybe …. but we don’t have tolerate people like that as our Prime Minister”
Leigh Lowe
25 Nov 12 at 7:52 am
The most disgraceful thing about Faine’s desperate performance this week was, after demanding to see “conclusive evidence of wrongdoing by Gillard”, takes a talk-back call from a rabid Emily’s List type who claims “evidence” of Abbott’s mysoginy (source …. Ann Summers no less) and goes on to join the dots to a couple of recent gruesome murders of women in Melbourne (Friday was “White Ribbon Day” against violence against women). Does Faino intervene and ask for evidence for this long-bow conclusion? Noooo. He happily let’s it run and in fact, only intervenes when his one conservative guest tries to dispute this outrageous slur.
He is simply a turd.
Leigh Lowe
25 Nov 12 at 8:05 am
She has recently claimed that she wasn’t involved in the conveyancing—and yet she didn’t deny that she was, in the S&G interview, when they asked her why she didn’t open a file on the conveyancing ‘on the system’. She just said she didn’t think to—confirming that she did do the conveyancing.
That’s a very good point. Lawyers may give a certain amount of free advice that’s off the record, but they never, never do free conveyancing. Unheard of.
So if there was a fee structure associated with the conveyancing then there must be a paper trail to match the fees, doubly so if the work was delegated internally to a para-legal because otherwise what would that para-legal have accounted their work against?
Tel
25 Nov 12 at 8:18 am
Faine has a habit of doing that, Leigh. It is an easy way appearing impartial while being partial.
dover_beach
25 Nov 12 at 8:28 am
OK, so a conveyancing file is on record, and does show that both Gillard and Blewitt knew what was going on:
Tel
25 Nov 12 at 8:32 am
Wilson knows that if Gillard falls he will fall harder. He must discredit Blewett. The only hope he has is that Gillard gets off and everyone is so fed up with the whole affair that all investigations cease. It is probably past that point already.
jupes
25 Nov 12 at 8:47 am
Correct Jupes.
This is how I thought it would play out.
Wilson is in deep shit if this gets opened up again, and may end up using his cooking skills to make porridge.
He is rat-cunning enough to know that a denial of his personal culpability won’t cut it, but siding with Gillard is his best chance of killing this off.
Leigh Lowe
25 Nov 12 at 8:58 am
Tel.. the conveyancing file has been available for some time with Gillards fingerprints all over it.. go over to michaelsmithnews.com
duncanm
25 Nov 12 at 9:02 am
A late night for some good Cat folks, batting on into the wee small hours this morning. Bit of shouty-ness from the interlopers too.
Septimus
25 Nov 12 at 9:02 am
Oh dear, Insiders with the repugnant left luvvie Mrs L Ramsay!!!!!
Mike of Marion
25 Nov 12 at 9:08 am
OK Bruce you’ve convinced me that she’s totally innocent,pure as the driven slush even,but what we really need to know is,was she a good root?
Lew
25 Nov 12 at 9:10 am
SFB making up more shit:
Not according to Blewitt: “We were good friends througout that period..”
http://www.2gb.com/article/ralph-blewitt-speaks
duncanm
25 Nov 12 at 9:12 am
It’s a complete circus now. Our fraudster’s word versus your fraudster’s word. This would be thrown out of court to the sound of judicial laughter. At least CL is willing to admit that there is no moral authority at work here, only partisan attack dog barking.
The next twist has to be investigation of Blewitt’s past in Asia, and where his money comes from. The WA police would no doubt like to extradite him from Victoria.
m0nty
25 Nov 12 at 9:17 am
Some of you are very dedicated… dealing with Scrappy all night.. what with his embolding an’ all.
Scrappy takes this as the killer get-out-of-gaol card:
Take note of the first part: apart from the initial legal advice Julia Gillard provided on the AWU Workplace Reform Association fund
As others have pointed out many times, this is (one of) the fundamental issues: The bogus (illegal) formation up of the AWU-WRA by one Julia Gillard.
duncanm
25 Nov 12 at 9:20 am
Wilson like the S&G lawyers was never going to say the Australian PM has committed fraud.
It might bring down the government, they would make tremendous enemies in the Labor Party. And the impact on their lives/jobs and families, it’s not something to be sneezed at.
candy
25 Nov 12 at 9:22 am
monty admits that Gillard is his and a fraudster. Progress.
dover_beach
25 Nov 12 at 9:23 am
“The most disgraceful thing about Faine’s desperate performance this week was, after demanding to see “conclusive evidence of wrongdoing by Gillard”, ”
Faine is one of the I Love Julia people whose minds are gone quite bent by it. Some sort of middle age crush thing going on.
candy
25 Nov 12 at 9:27 am
SteveC, you keep relying on this part of Gillard’s epic question and non-answer session:
If she was providing advice to Wilson about setting up the association (she allegedly actually helped him set up the association – that is, she went a step further), did she bother to check with anyone else he had the authority from the AWU to do so? If not, it is hard to say she was providing free advice to a ‘union official’. If she had done that simple check, this whole thing could have been avoided. At best she was negligent and incredibly incompetent as a solicitor. That trend of monumental incompetence his continued into her political career.
Skuter
25 Nov 12 at 9:28 am
No db, I was referring to Blewitt and Wilson. Which you knew, of course.
m0nty
25 Nov 12 at 9:29 am
I’ll say. I’m bringing a packed lunch and popcorn for later in the microwave.
Stock up on the Krispy’s Fat Boy.
JC
25 Nov 12 at 9:30 am
And presumably S&G had a written policy back then which covered this sort of activity. Every Christmas, the mobs I have worked for have sent out reminder emails stating:
- the value of gifts that I can accept without declaring them (about $25 usually)
- the value of gifts I can accept so long as I can declare them (up to $200 generally)
- the value of gifts I cannot accept, even if I declare them (anything over 200 bucks)
I’m sure most people who work in big corporate or government are used to being regularly bombarded with policy reminders.
If the S&G policy stated that you could do thousands of dollars worth of work for nothing without opening a file and without letting the other partners know, then she has done nothing wrong (as far as the partnership was concerned).
I’d like to see the S&G policies from back then. In all the records of interview etc, nothing is said about policies and whether she worked within the bounds of existing S&G policy or breached them.
A journo simply needs to ask, “Were you aware of the S&G policies covering doing free work for clients and the opening of files, and did you adhere to these written policies or not? If not, is that why you left S&G?”
boy on a bike
25 Nov 12 at 9:32 am
Steve says:
The cheque for the balance of the purchase monies came from Wilson’s crooked association; it appears that Blewitt was provided with these instructions.
These instructions requested a bank cheque for the amount of $67,722.30 be either sent to S&G or deposited into the nominated account..
As I said question marks must attach to that process whereby authority is delegated to Blewitt. A link to the AFR article would be appreciated.
The author of the letter to Blewitt is interesting though; that is Olive Brosnahan; the same Ms Brosnahan who sent this office memo to Gillard. The memo was about detailed mortgage information and was dated 12th March 1993, and confirms Styant-Brown’s claim that Gillard was intimately aware of the mortgage and conveyance will before her statement that it was 1995.
cohenite
25 Nov 12 at 9:34 am
Skuter
The Steves twin, SteveC is an asshat for suggesting she answered the question. The example the lying defrauding slapper gave was an account of introductory discussions- not the work she did for her associates in the fraud.
He deserves a rabbit punch for trolling and attempting to reframe the discussion.
JC
25 Nov 12 at 9:39 am
Yeh. Shouty-ness
Septimus
25 Nov 12 at 9:41 am
“the next twist has to be investigation of Blewitt’s past in Asia, and where his money comes from.”
Blewitt is shonky for sure, perhaps he was before he went to Vietnam.
But he was in the 2RAR apparently and those guys came back a bit unhinged.
candy
25 Nov 12 at 9:41 am
The firm extends a mortgage and the lying Slapper suggests she wasn’t aware of the documentation that went with it.
Who the hell does she think she’s lying to. This is the Cat and we unearth every single leftwing lie.
JC
25 Nov 12 at 9:42 am
This is truly freaking amazing. The shit really does seem to rise to the top in the Liars Party.
They all seem to have serious issues.
Hawke… basically a drunk
Keating… a head case with a chip on his shoulder that he didn’t go to university.
The Fat dude… forget his name .. he was okay
Latho… Complete headcase
The little Turd…nasty passive aggressive beta male. Personality of a toilet door knob. Frail personality.
The Lying Slapper… Commie, crook, misogynist, had a thing for married men, inveterate liar.
The fat dude was the only one that appears half normal. This isn’t a good look.
JC
25 Nov 12 at 9:49 am
Oh, got to be fair. There was of course simon crean and he was mentally stable but insufferably boring.
So the run rate is
Four serious mental cases. A fat dude and a crushing bore but otherwise mentally stable. This isn’t good.
JC
25 Nov 12 at 9:52 am
In what can only be taken as a response to Styant-Brown (though he was not specifically named), Gillard has labelled the latest revelations as smear and innuendo in an interview. It will interesting to watch Styant-Brown’s response, particularly what other cards (documents) he has to lay on the table.
In case no one noticed, Gillard has just broken her own rules in addressing the fraud again. Didn’t she say the August press gallery session was the last time she would talk about this ?
Keith
25 Nov 12 at 9:54 am
Styant-Browne is a really interesting player. I can only ascertain that his interest in all this is all about integrity. He appears to be so disgusted with the Lying Slapper’s behavior that he won’t let her get away with lying. He also doesn’t want his name associated with this stuff.
He’s the one who seems to be really drawing blood. The entire edifice the slapper created that she left the firm S&G for a higher calling – politics….. well he caused that wall to come crashing down on the lying rodent.
This is beautiful to watch in all it’s ugliness (quoting Oakeshitt)
JC
25 Nov 12 at 10:02 am
Just another lie. It’s what she does.
Septimus
25 Nov 12 at 10:06 am
This is fairly common now, especially amongst government departments. But 20 years ago? Also even today exceptions are common amongst executives – eg invites to attend a sporting even in a corporate box don’t count. And smaller private organisations often have no such rules at all (eg its common for travel agencies to give kick back “free study holidays” to people who do bookings for others).
Chris
25 Nov 12 at 10:07 am
someone said
“It’s a complete circus now. Our fraudster’s word versus your fraudster’s word.”
At least its a change from our boatpeople policies versus your boatpeople policies.
Alice
25 Nov 12 at 10:09 am
For a law office dealing with union clients? Ummmm Yea.
And by the way APS staff were never allowed to accept gifts.
Stop the bullshit, Chris.
It’s enough now.
JC
25 Nov 12 at 10:11 am
JC at 9:42am (pretend time):
Love it!
We are the Cat. We have are a very particular set of skills, skills we have acquired in a very testing blog. Skills that make us a nightmare for people like Fat Ugly Julia. We will look for you lying turds, we will find you, and we will still you.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
25 Nov 12 at 10:14 am
20 years.
Obeid was in NSW parliament for 20 years. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.
Keith
25 Nov 12 at 10:15 am
It sounds like Styant-Browne is the only person J. Gillard hasn’t done a deal with (yet?)
candy
25 Nov 12 at 10:21 am
I’m just waiting for them to start blaming the paralegal. The date of the $15,000 cheque cashed as $5000 cash and $15,000 cheque, when considered with the date of the alleged $5,000 cash deposit into Ms Gillard’s account is really interesting. Brucie doing a bit of the laundry? A million bucks apparently disappeared and the orphans and widows having to wait for their payouts? That he is still unprosecuted for anything – and walked away with a substantial payout into the bargain – is scandalous.
Cath
25 Nov 12 at 10:22 am
… but then I guess if you are protecting the PM you have to protect Wilson too.
Cath
25 Nov 12 at 10:23 am
JC,
Styant-Browne is still working and is going to protect his rep no matter what. His overseas clients would be watching with interest.
Adding to your list : Evatt, Calwell, Whitlam and Hayden. What a tradition of socialist fiends and union suckholes.
Keith
25 Nov 12 at 10:24 am
… and that should be $10,000 cheque at 10.22am
Cath
25 Nov 12 at 10:25 am
While all this is very interesting, I think anyone who takes John C Reilly as a lover IMHO should be forbidden to run for office.
Holden
25 Nov 12 at 10:44 am
It does not matter about Wilson or Blewitt. She’s in trouble regardless of what they say. I see that Burke on Insidera says its all over because Wilson says so. Can we get some adults into the circus.
tiny dancer
25 Nov 12 at 10:53 am
It seems to be coming down to proof of JG’s direct involvement in:
1. Setting up the AWU WRA
2. Vouching for the bona fides of the AWU WRA to WA Corp Affairs Commissioner
3. Preparing the Power of Attorney in favour of Wilson
4. Conveyancing on the Kerr St property
5. Facilitating the $150k mortgage for the Kerr St property
Proof of all the above exists (documents, file notes etc) except for 2 (perhaps the slam dunk Julie B comes up with in Parl this week?). Denial by JG about her involvement, particularly the conveyancing, is not supported by the documents.
That JG did not establish system files, nor notify the proper authorities when she discovered the fraud adds to her culpability. Her denial about knowing of the mortgage (blaming the paralegal Olive B) was blown out of the water by NSB on the 7:30 Report last week. Those who say there’s no proof or smoking gun, and deliberately obfuscate the facts as they exist, are being disingenuous.
While JG represents the best option for the coalition going into an election year, such a tainted and tawdry past for our Prime Minister reflects badly on Australia’s reputation.
Oblique
25 Nov 12 at 10:56 am
Burke who?
dover_beach
25 Nov 12 at 11:02 am
Folk, folks,
This whole misunderstanding can be easily solved. Macquarie Dictionary will on Monday redefine “doing nothing wrong” as meaning “not having been proven to have done anything criminal”.
Thus, from next week, Australia will lead the world in new freedoms:
1.Lawyers can sleep with and take advice from their clients’ employees, but only the good looking ones (cohenite, why are you fighting this?)
2.Lawyers get to keep sundry notes in their cupboards, away from jealous eyes of other partners. Special inbuilt shredders will be remotely triggerable by phone (I dibs that patent!)
3.Lawyers can witness signatures on heresy from another city. This will reduce travel and CO2 emissions, a clear win-win.
4.The notion of ‘conflict of interest’ will be abolished. Now you will be able to represent so many more clients – which clearly has no conflict with your interest.
5. Lawyers will operate on the principle that ‘What your client doesn’t know can’t hurt him’, so no need to charge him for phone calls informing him of fraud, for goodness sake, especially by your boyfriend, how embarrassing to your client.
Of course, adultery, lying, breaking core election pledges, disloyalty, misrepresentation of CV’s regarding work in socialist newspapers and dismissals, non-racial vilification and complete incompetence by females have already been legitimised and in fact celebrated in Australia, thanks to our progressive PM. So folks, go forth and enjoy.
SteveC, I presume that’s all good for you, because that’s how you presumably already operate.
MichaelC58
25 Nov 12 at 11:03 am
Labor’s John Black on Bolt this morning says the caucus is returning to Rudd. Interesting that Swan (of all people) held out an olive branch to Kevni yesterday.
C.L.
25 Nov 12 at 11:09 am
Speaking of deranged Labor leaders, Bob “Dred Scott Was Great” Carr BA (Hons), CWB says there is a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and that
Charlie SheenJulia is WINNING!Labor claims win from Wilson comments.
And this:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
C.L.
25 Nov 12 at 11:15 am
Tony Burke, minister for the environment and believing in fraud steers who are protecting themselves.
Tiny Dancer
25 Nov 12 at 11:18 am
truth at 12.47
True, and equally if you really want to see things that aren’t there, then you will see them. I can recommend watching some Derren Brown for examples.
SteveC
25 Nov 12 at 11:21 am
I can only conclude that Senator carr is mentally unwell.
Carpe Jugulum
25 Nov 12 at 11:21 am
Link to the AFR article I have been reeferring to.
SteveC
25 Nov 12 at 11:24 am
I forgot:
7.Lawyers will be allowed to tell white lies for clients, especially to state government authorities – after all, what’s your client paying the big bucks for. Your right to lie will be held inviolable under professional-client privilege.
8.Association with union thugs and criminals will be a pre-requisite for future PM’s. It is where celebrated qualities of steely ruthlessness, shamelessness, deal-making behind closed doors and ‘creative’ excuses for stuff-ups, so essential to Labor governance, are forged. The goody goody, nancy pansy Rhodes scholarships, competent governance, traditional family life and community volunteering of Tony Abbott won’t cut the mustard here, buddy.
MichaelC58
25 Nov 12 at 11:24 am
Skuter, wasn’t he the state Secretary. I would think a State secretary would have that authority.
SteveC
25 Nov 12 at 11:30 am
Remember the time when John Howard’s lover got him to drive his car to the bank as she and her bag man went in to make a $400,000 “withdrawal”. As he was sitting in the car, Shirley the Greek resprayed his car. He was driving the car for nothing, but as he wound down the window to receive a brown paper bag with $5000 in it he could hear Shirley the Greek yelling at the bank manager “Where is my money for the spray job” Despite having qualifications including a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws, whilst a partner in a large law firm, all this seemed perfectly normal. The left would never have touched this story so I think we can all back off poor old Julia. Holden out
Holden
25 Nov 12 at 11:31 am
The POA finishes her.
The rest is icing.
Alfonso
25 Nov 12 at 11:32 am
Ex wife is bitter towards ex husband. Hold the presses.
Looks like the boyfriend is a bit deluded:
They won’t stop mate, its like that first leak you take at the pub. Once the seal is broken the dam breaks.
DaveF
25 Nov 12 at 11:48 am
I take your point about the cheque Steve C.
The incorrectness of the S & G ledger is convenient and suspicious – but I’m not an accounts guy so I’m not sure on that.
The AFR story does appear to miss the elephant in the room – why is Blewitt putting up the money for Wilson ?
The legal question is – is Gillard put to enquiry about this ? Lawyers can’t hide behind not knowing stuff if they had a duty to know.
She says she knew nothing about the conveyance. Forget the file notes with her fingerprints all over them –
She did the POA mid-conveyance. She WENT to the auction…..
As Holden points out the argument about this is quite surreal.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 11:51 am
Whether the cheque was seen by the slapper is immaterial. Solicitor’s trust funds are meticulously kept. You can’t just put money in there and pretend. Where the money is from (the dodgy assn’s account) is recorded and receipted. Where it goes (to the purchaser) is recorded and receipted.
Any non dodgy conveyancer, conveyancing supervisor, solicitor, solicitor of the boyfriend purchasing the property (said solicitor attending themauction) would hear alarms and sirens when that cheque hit the trust account. Questions would have been asked. Particularly when the cheque is from an account for the dodgy assn (set up by the same firm) provided for a private purchase.
One explanation is she didn’t know. The other reasonable hypothesis is that not only did she know she aided and abetted. The latter sits far more comfortably than the contortions required to accept the former. Blewitt and Wilson are just distractions.
Circumstantial cases are commonplace in the criminal justice system. They’re no stronger or weaker than direct evidence cases or cases where there is a mixture of evidence.
At best she is negligent and incompetent. At worst she has been a party to the disposal of criminal proceeds which given her role with the dodgy assn, makes her a party to the whole lot.
Most likely is the ALP or the electorate will roll her. Her handling of the matter has thus far been woeful.
Secondly, don’t go to the Steves or scrap heap for advice on criminal matters.
Tiny Dancer
25 Nov 12 at 12:30 pm
Surprisingly (to me!) I find myself in agreement with Chris Berg this morning on outsiders on Radio National, when he said “as most people believe there are mundane explanations for everything” and “the [so called] unanswered questions are meanigless”.
There is no transcript, but you can listen here and the specific Chris Berg answer starts at 13:33
SteveC
25 Nov 12 at 12:48 pm
which appears to be what was done (and telegraphically transferred – the 90′s version of internet banking!).
I’m curious what is the source of the copy of the cheque?
SteveC
25 Nov 12 at 12:50 pm
Scapula…
It’s ridiculous to say there’s nothing if you take Wilson out of the picture.
Such a tactic would exonerate all manner of wrongdoers.
There’s always something/someone that motivates them to do the wrong thing.
You claim S&G’s dropping of the inquiry exonerates Gillard.
Apart from the fact that it’s obvious from the interview and from Styant-Browne’s interview, that they wanted her to go, there’s the matter of what they might unfortunately for them uncover had they continued to delve into the matters and publicise them.
What legal firm hoping to keep or attract law-abiding, reputable clients, would want it known that their law partners may or may not behave ethically and lawfully on whim, depending on whether it suited the law partner’s own personal relationships and situation?
AWU was an existing client of S&G.
Julia Gillard was secretive in drawing up the AWU Workplace Reform Association documents for her boyfriend under AWU’s name.
S&G partners knew nothing about it—AWU knew nothing about it —for years—but she and her boyfriend did.
If Gillard didn’t know her boyfriend was doing the wrong thing, then why did she feel it was important to keep his AWU Association a secret from AWU and S&G all that time—years?
You may have standards such that you think it doesn’t matter to you or anyone else if things are done in your/their name, without your knowledge, and with deliberate steps having been taken [ no file on the system] to make sure you didn’t know.
Well good luck with that.
But most reasonable people and entities are not so sanguine—and would see such behaviour by a lawyer in a position of trust as completely unethical, and depending on how much was known by the lawyer about what was done under the entity’s name with her assistance—potentially unlawful.
truth
25 Nov 12 at 12:51 pm
Hey, has Abbott ever received a secret $5000 windfall from a criminal?
C.L.
25 Nov 12 at 12:54 pm
Umm, no. This blog is just one of many (Michael Smith and Pickering come to mind) where right wing fantasists come up with never ending conspiracies that will “nail” Gillard, and others. I recall Gillard referred to this class of blogs as “nut jobs on the internet”:
Analysis which is spot on, as this very thread attests. The story has been “nailed” so many times I think you could open a Bunnings hardware and make a fortune selling all the nails.
SteveC
25 Nov 12 at 12:58 pm
Right.. but that’s one of the important boxes of paper the rats got to, or washed away in a flood, or .. nothing to see here.
duncanm
25 Nov 12 at 1:17 pm
Scapula…
It’s ridiculous to say there’s nothing if you take Wilson out of the picture.
Such a tactic would exonerate all manner of wrongdoers.
There’s always something/someone that motivates them to do the wrong thing.
You claim S&G’s dropping of the inquiry exonerates Gillard.
Apart from the fact that it’s obvious from the interview and from Styant-Browne’s interview, that they wanted her to go, there’s the matter of what they might unfortunately for them uncover had they continued to delve into the matters and publicise them.
What legal firm hoping to keep or attract law-abiding, reputable clients, would want it known that their law partners may or may not behave ethically and lawfully on whim, depending on whether it suited the law partner’s own personal relationships and situation?
AWU was an existing client of S&G.
Julia Gillard was secretive in drawing up the AWU Workplace Reform Association documents for her boyfriend under AWU’s name.
S&G partners knew nothing about it—AWU knew nothing about it —for years—but she and her boyfriend did.
If Gillard didn’t know her boyfriend was doing the wrong thing, then why did she feel it was important to keep his AWU Association a secret from AWU and S&G all that time—years?
You may have standards such that you think it doesn’t matter to you or anyone else if things are done in your/their name, without your knowledge, and with deliberate steps having been taken [ no file on the system] to make sure you didn’t know.
Well good luck with that.
But most reasonable people and entities are not so sanguine—and would see such behaviour by a lawyer in a position of trust as completely unethical, and depending on how much was known by the lawyer about what was done under the entity’s name with his/her assistance—potentially unlawful.
truth
25 Nov 12 at 1:21 pm
You’d think if you wanted to prove your innocence you’d get your hands quick smart on all the documents publicly available before “someone” secreted the evidence away to another secure “location”.
Gab
25 Nov 12 at 1:23 pm
From steve’s link about whether the cheque for $67 grand used to complete the purchase of Wilson’s shack was direct deposited into S&G’s trust account or sent to them:
This is unclear; was the cheque used as a direct deposit to the vendor for the property or was it direct deposited by Blewitt as he claims he did?
Apart from this the date on the cheque is interesting; it is dated 18th March 1993 and signed by both Wilson and Blewitt; why was this done when Blewitt’s POA to Wilson was dated the 4th February 1993?
cohenite
25 Nov 12 at 1:25 pm
SteveC, I would have thought a State Secretary would need a resolution passed by the executive to create an association and open bank accounts. Wasn’t that part of the AWU’s rules?
Skuter
25 Nov 12 at 5:27 pm
Skuter – well it would need a resolution of the committee of the Association that was to be founded. As it was incorporated separately to the AWU the need for the AWU to “approve” it would be debatable. However, given that it was using the AWU name you would think that would be prudent.
Either way it seems moot because the WA Commerce dept would not require a copy of the resolution to form the association.
If I decided to create an Association tomorrow called the “Catallaxian Defence Fund” and invite my good friends Steve from Brisbane and m0nty to be members, I would not need the approval of anyone at Catallaxy Files to do so. And if I asked a lawyer to help me I would be surprised if they asked if I had the approval of “Catallaxy Files”.
SteveC
25 Nov 12 at 6:25 pm
no, this is wrong if you are comparing it to AWU and AWU-WRA in which case the correct example would be
Gab
25 Nov 12 at 6:29 pm
Wrong SteveC. If your girlfriend was your solicitor and you worked for “Catallaxy Files” and the assn was for a purpose other than that stated n the document the situation would be entirely different especially for her.
Tiny Dancer
25 Nov 12 at 6:30 pm
cohenite, in regard to the two signatures, I’m guessing the association bank account required “two to sign”. And while technically Wilson could sign it for Blewitt, it would look a bit odd as he would have signed the same cheque twice. Likely they didn’t want to have a hassle with the cheque clearance.
It’s astonishing of course that they used the association funds so blatantly! Writing and signing cheques to S&G trust fund from the association account. They didn’t go to much trouble to hide their tracks. Presumably they thought they couldn’t be caught. Who were the other members? I guess they must have all been in on it (current association rules require 6 members – I assume it was the same back in 93).
SteveC
25 Nov 12 at 6:32 pm
Yes quite right. I might get that started tomorrow. The only snag could be the name conflict, but Catallaxy Files doesn’t seem to be registered, so I wouldn’t imagine it to be an issue.
m0nty, sfb ?
SteveC
25 Nov 12 at 6:35 pm
You don’t get the obvious
Tiny Dancer
25 Nov 12 at 6:36 pm
Interesting and somewhat familiar…
Gab
25 Nov 12 at 6:37 pm
SteveC – The voices in your head, stop listening to them. They are wrong.
Carpe Jugulum
25 Nov 12 at 6:37 pm
I can’t wait to see what hypothetical stevec comes up with next.
Gab
25 Nov 12 at 6:39 pm
It’s astonishing of course that they used the association funds so blatantly! Writing and signing cheques to S&G trust fund from the association account. They didn’t go to much trouble to hide their tracks. Presumably they thought they couldn’t be caught.
Yes they could have had some sort of payments for ‘work’ or ‘reports’ or the like to Wilson.
People in an atmosphere of laxity and semi-criminality just do whatever. If everyone is doing the same thing then why shouldn’t I.
You can see it in the sullen resentment in the face of any of these guys who get caught, like Thomson. Thomson’s internal monologue would be – “Everyone was doing it, so why can’t I ? I wasn’t even the worst. It’s so unfair, particularly as I am bound for a number of reasons from spilling the beans on the others”.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 6:44 pm
Then S&G (and not just Gillard) were openly contradicting their own regulations because they’ve agreed that it was policy to give union leaders freebies because they were trying to attract more of that business.
APS employees may never have been able to receive gifts, but state public servants used to be able to as long as the value wasn’t over a certain amount. And in the private sector it used to be very common. Even now, low value items such as pens, clothing, food, drink etc are commonplace in the private sector.
Chris
25 Nov 12 at 6:57 pm
Skuter:
SteveC is demonstrating his ignorance of the facts of this issue. The rules of the AWU which Gillard was duty bound to know required approval by resolution of the Union Executive for the opening of bank accounts. All power didn’t reside in the hands of the Secretary for obvious reasons. Gillard ignored these rules and acted regardless which allowed Blewitt and Wilson to complete the fraud which was already on foot.
SteveC should acquaint himself with the Cambridge affidavit which sets out in minute detail the transgressions including the source of funds into and the expenditure of funds from the unauthorised accounts.
Amortiser
25 Nov 12 at 9:51 pm
Amortiser, the newly incorporated association opened a bank account, not the AWU. Granted, using the name AWU as part of the name of the new association could cause an issue with the AWU, but the new association was not part of the AWU. Hence it needing to be incorporated.
If it was just another bank account, there would be no need to incorporate. An incorporated association is a separate legal entity.
SteveC
25 Nov 12 at 10:59 pm
Steve C
Your comment just highlights the unreality of the situation.
I work for a company called “Podsnap Inc”. I then go to a lawyer whose firm acts for “Podsnap Inc” and get them to incorporate an association called “Podsnap Inc Christmas Fund”.
No doubt the rules of the company “Podsnap Inc” don’t apply to the association. But what the hell is the lawyer thinking ? The first question from the lawyer should obviously be “This Association relates to Podsnap Inc – right ? Then do you have authority from Podsnap Inc to set up this Association ?”.
Podsnap
25 Nov 12 at 11:11 pm
Press conference from PM.
kae
26 Nov 12 at 1:36 pm
She’s cranky!
Watch the body language… the darting eyes…
kae
26 Nov 12 at 1:36 pm
Kae – head over to the OT
Carpe Jugulum
26 Nov 12 at 1:38 pm